Dear BEYSAD Readers;
I am happy to introduce to you a Young BEYSAD member: Kale Musluk General Manager Assistant Ayk Antil. I would like to add a few important comments about Young BEYSAD members to my heartful feelings I shared in the opening words of our previous interview. I cannot express how grateful I am to the members of Young BEYSAD because besides being successful, they are loyal, conscientious, warm hearted people that help those in need. I would like to say once again that I feel lucky that they are a part of my life and a part of BEYSAD. I would like to thank Ayk for finalizing his preparations for the interview and sparing us his valuable time.

Could you introduce yourself?
Hello! I am Ayk Antil. I was born in March 27, 1986. I studied International Finance and upon graduation in 2009, I started to work for our family business.

Could you tell us about your company and its operations?
Founded in Thursday’s Market in 1969, our company works in brass forging and machining. Although the company ended producing faucets after the 90's, it continued to mostly work on plumbing materials. For almost ten years, we produce upon customer demand for various sectors including white goods, heating, cooling, power, etc. Lately with our experience in brass forging, we do machining also in aluminum alloys.

When did your path crossed with your company?
I started to work for our family business full-time after I graduated in 2009.

Could you tell us the organizational structure of your company?
Our company now has 120 employees. Our founders and first generation executives - Kemal Ayvaz is the CEO and Herman Antil is our Vice-CEO and they are always with us whenever we need their vast experience. The second generation executives are Erman Ayvaz as the General Manager and Aren Antil and I as the Assistant General Managers. We began our corporatization process and we continue to grow by strengthening our team with executives who are experts in their areas.

Could you tell us about your export rates and which country do you export the most?
We export 70% of the products we make. As our domestic market customers work toward exports mostly, we can say that almost all of our production is directly or indirectly exported. Most of these exports go to Germany, France, Holland and Northern European countries. Besides European countries, we also export to North Africa and Russia. Our operations will include North and South Africa in the upcoming period.

What distinguishes you from your competitors?
What distinguishes Kale Musluk from our competitors is our flexible production capacity, that we can perform forging and machining in various tonnages and in various kinds and that we give importance to robot automations.

Could you tell us about your new investments and R&D related operations?
We perform R&D constantly on new materials and production methods with the guidance of our customers. We are using the physical capacity of our current production area to the limit. However, we continue investing in machines. We will continue investing to increase our machining capacity by 20% in 2021. In parallel, we work on expanding our production area.

How did you deal with the pandemic, how was 2020 for you and what are your forecasts for 2021?
We have to accept that 2020 was hard for everyone both physically and mentally. However, as Asian producers decreased their capacities and the supply chain had delays, European customers started to look for alternative suppliers, which was a positive development for us. I believe that in 2021 we will be sought after as an alternative supplier and will even become the main supplier. We keep on investing to achieve this.

What do you think about the development of Industry 4.0 in Turkey? Do you have preliminary operations and measures?
It has been only a decade since the concept of Industry 4.0 emerged and it has been in our agenda and operations for years in Turkey, which shows that we will not stay behind our global competitors in this area. We have been investing in infrastructure since 2012 in the company; therefore I think we had an early start. As we can track the entire production processes on our computer system, we think we gained experience by investing in robot technologies for years.

You are a Young BEYSAD member for a long time now; we would like to have your input on YB and its operations. With this, we may receive more second and third generation executives in this group.

I think that Young BEYSAD is one of BEYSAD’s most brilliant projects. In YB, young generations, the future of our businesses, can have a say in the Association and carry out projects among them. We carried out many beneficial events together and we consult each other about any issues we may have in our companies. Before the pandemic especially, we would come together more often but now we continue our operations online.

What are your thoughts on and expectations of BEYSAD?
BEYSAD is one of the most distinguished communities in Turkey. We are thrilled to be able to work with the esteemed businesses and their valuable executives. With the Industry 4.0 projects, the Strategy Document issued, company and fair visits, BEYSAD draws the road map for the sector. I believe we will achieve many great projects in this Association for years to come.