Can you briefly tell about yourself?
In 2003, I graduated from Middle East Technical University, Department of Mechanical Engineering. Immediately after the school, I started to work as a sales representative in one of the leading companies in the iron and steel industry. In 2006, I completed my Lean 6 Sigma training and was found eligible to get the title of “black belt”. Then, I served as a manager in both sales and supply chain units. In 2017, I worked as the general manager assistant responsible for the supply chain in the investment made by one of the leading companies of this industry together with a foreign shareholder. In that period, I managed the raw material, production, sales and planning/logistics departments. In 2018, I joined YildizDemirCelik family, the youngest and most dynamic company in the steel industry, and accepted the duty of being Sales and Marketing Director.

Can you give us information about the corporate profile of Yildiz Demir Celik?
YildizDemirCelik was commissioned in March 2018 as a subsidiary of YildizlarYatirim Holding that has decided to invest in the iron and steel industry besides forestry products, fertilizers-chemicals, port management and maritime transportation. The purpose of establishment of our company is to meet the need of high quality flat steel required and imported for the white goods and automotive industries in Turkey and therefore contribute to the national economy. In our production facilities, equipped with advanced and environmentally friendly technology, we hold manufacturing activities according to the needs of our customers. While on one hand we manufacture tailor-made products for our customers, on the other hand we serve with the mission of adding value to our stakeholders and employees with a contemporary management approach.

Can you give information about the steel you produce and your production capacity? What are the industries in which your steel products are mainly used?
At our facilities, established on a land of 300,000 m2 in KocaeliAlikahya Organized Industrial Zone, equipped with the latest technology and acting with an environmentalist approach, we process hot rolled input material through various production processes in line with the customer needs and demands and turn them into pickled hot, cold rolled/batch annealed, galvanized or color-coated final products and offer them for sale.

In our factory, which has an annual pickling/cold rolling capacity of 1.5 million tons, we produce a wide range of products for use in different industries such as white goods, automotive, panel radiators, general manufacturing and construction sectors. Our company has also an important position in steel industry in terms of capacity and product variety with its annual production capacity of 400,000 tons of galvanizing line, 150,000 tons of colorcoatinglineand 300,000 tons of cold rolled steel.

How would you describe the position of YildizDemirCelik in the relevant industry and what are the reasons of its being preferred?
Of course, there are several reasons why YildizDemirCelik is preferred by its current customers. We have a facility equipped with the latest technology of the industry. At our facility called “Cold Complex”, we can produce pickled, full hard, cold-rolled, galvanized and color coated steel from the hot-rolled steel.

Another reason why we are preferred in the relevant industry is the importance we attach to the customer satisfaction. We deem our customers as our business partners and aim to maintain an uninterrupted communication. We pay attention to their demands and needs, analyze the market and produce accordingly. Finally, the point I want to emphasize is our green production approach. In today's world where sustainability is very important, global companies desire their business partners to have environmental-friendly and sustainable production. We, as YildizlarYatirim Holding, also maintain this environmentalist approach in YildizDemirCelik, as it is in all of our companies. Particularly this approach affects preferences of the global companies.

As you know, in order to be the supplier of sophisticated industries such as white goods and automotive, you should have very specialized and high quality production. We see that expectations of these industries and our perspective match. In this context, we improve ourselves day by day in order to take place among the pioneer players active in those strategically important industries.

How was 2019 going for your company? Will there be any investments you will start in 2020?
As you know, there has been a fluctuation in the Turkish economy, particularly in the manufacturing industry in recent years. Besides our country, the growth figures of developing countries as well as developed countries are lagging behind the figures of the previous years. Therefore, the figures in both our domestic and export markets were slightly behind the figures achieved in the previous years. However, we expect that the improvement started late in this year, will much more rise up in 2020. Moreover, we are planning to enrich our product portfolio with the new investment steps to produce new generation high strength steel that are needed and mostly imported.

How much do you export out of your total sales? What were your export figures for 2019?
While YildizDemirCelik is operating to satisfy the needs of the domestic market in Turkey, we achieved to get significant success in export at the same time. For example, we fulfilled our first export in August 2018 right after we started production in March 2018. With our exports completed until the end of 2018, we got the 407th rank in the top 1000 exporters of Turkey.

We have targeted European countries, Middle East and Africa as our main export markets. In particular, we continue to increase our sales to white goods, sandwich panels, general manufacturing industries and barrel manufacturing companies.

What does your company do about Industry 4.0 and digitalization? Do you have any investments for that?
One of the biggest contributions of technology to the industry is undoubtedly Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0, where the entire production process is digitally monitored, controlled and even some of the works are carried out by artificial intelligence, creates a great advantage with the efficiency it provides in today's cutthroat competition. As I mentioned before, since our factory has not been in operation yet for a full 2 years, the entire machine park and software systems of our factory are equipped with the latest technology. On the other hand, we will continue our R&D activities in our new R&D facility, to newly be established. These will not only improve the products, but also our production process one step further, both with the teams we have constituted within our company and with the cooperation with various universities.

What are your company’s goals within the next 5 years?
Within 5 years, we make effort to become well-known and preferred manufacturer not only in our country but also globally. We aim to continue our production as an approved supplier that will provide competitive advantage to our customers in international platforms for the industries we target.