Interview with Mr. Fırat Sağlam

We had a pleasant interview with Mr. Fırat Sağlam, Bühler Turkey General Manager, on the fields of activity of the company, R&D activities and company policies.

Could you please tell us about yourself and your professional background in the industry?

I was born in 1984 in Ankara. After getting my bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering, I worked in different companies as a Sales Engineer and Process Engineer in the US and also in Turkey. Then, I joined Bühler Turkey in 2013. During my Bühler career, I have worked for the grinding and dispersing business unit, first in Turkey, then in Iran, Pakistan and finally in the entire Middle East and Africa region as a Sales and Business Development Manager. In 2020, I was appointed as the Sales Director for all business units in Turkey. In the meantime, I received my MBA degree from Boğaziçi University and completed my 1-year education at the UK Ashridge Hult Business School as part of the Bühler Global Executive Development Program. Finally, I took over the General Manager position of Bühler Turkey in 2021 and I am still working in this position.

Could you please tell us the success story of Bühler Turkey from its establishment to the present?

Bühler started its activities in Turkey following the invention of the first complete milling machine in 1890 and the installation of the first machine in Edirne in 1903. Bühler machines were used in the 1920s and 1930s in Afyon and Bursa respectively. Bühler has always had representation offices in Turkey since the early 1950s. A permanent Bühler Turkey office was established in the mid-1980s. Bühler has made serious contributions to the development of Turkish industry since these years by establishing Turkey's first chocolate, grain and food processing lines, feed production, oil production, pulses, paints and inks production facilities with its machines, technologies, embedded lines, and complete factories through the offering of high-quality European technologies. This resulted from playing a leading role by supplying Turkish industrialists both in the establishment and development processes of the sectors. Today, Bühler continues to expand its activities in Turkey with a staff of 35 people within its own organization and a total of 80 people together with its partners; in addition to its technical sales activities, local capabilities have been increased through in-service engineering, technology services, local purchasing and local project management functions; as well as spare parts warehouse, test and demo application centers. In addition to two offices in Istanbul, a service center in Izmir, another office and application center in Ankara, and a service engineer pool spread throughout Turkey, it has doubled its turnover on a foreign currency basis in the last 5 years and is active in all areas where Bühler has solutions.

Which sectors do you serve and what are your product groups, especially for paints and inks sectors?

Bühler carries out its activities in the paints and inks sector under the 'Grinding and Dispersing' business unit. Bühler is one of the few companies that can manufacture machines and technologies at any scale, for any product at any viscosity, for any particle size distribution target in any process where wet grinding is required. For this, we have the Cenomic™ series, full-capacity disc type horizontal bead mills as well as the MicroMedia™ series unique high-energy pin type vertical bead mills which can perform wet grinding even up to nano levels for operations of low-to-medium-viscosity products suitable for all printing techniques such as roto and flexo gravure liquid inks, digital printing inks, besides other applications where high-quality expectations are also present such as agrochemicals, automotive paints, coil coatings, marine paints, anticorrosive coatings, color filters, color pastes, etc. I can say that we have changed the rules of the game with MacroMedia™, our revolutionary new wet milling technology that we offer for the pre-grinding and dispersing needs of this sector. We have achieved significant success both in Turkey and around the world with this technology, in which we combine both mixing and pregrinding processes in a single machine. On the other hand, we have the SD-Serie™, Trinomic™ and Trias™ series three-roller mill machines, as well as the K-Mill™ series conical mills in our portfolio for operations of medium-high to extreme-viscosity products such as high-density ceramic pastes, glass dye pastes, metal dye pastes, offset inks, coldset-heatset inks, sheet-fed inks, banknote inks, mineral processes, textile dyes, cosmetic dyes, etc. Last but not least, we are able to provide all types of mixers, especially high-speed mixers, double shaft mixers and high torque mixers as well as press-outs and other complementary transportation, dosing and storage systems in order to serve complete plant and/or line installation needs of our customers. These studies are carried out by the expert teams of our engineering department together with a century of experience and know-how in this field. We can implement any requested level of automation on these solutions. [caption id="attachment_145944" align="aligncenter"] Service Engineers Mustafa Boran and Ilyas Gökdemir, Operation Manager Uğur Abbasoğlu[/caption]

Could you please talk about how important R&D is to you and the opportunities you have allocated for these studies?

R&D is the DNA of Bühler's long-established corporate culture with a history of 162 years. At this point, I think it is useful to speak with clear numbers. 50% of Bühler's annual turnover of approximately CHF 3 billion comes from the technologies it has produced in the last 5 years. This development is the result of a culture that allocates 5% of its income to R&D every year. We can say that Bühler has left its mark on the sector with an annual R&D budget of CHF 150 million in this field, and leads not only today's but also tomorrow's technologies with more than 1,200 patents. The reflections of this leadership in the paints and inks sector are; Cenomic™-Optima, which we developed and launched in 2022, MicroMedia™-Invicta, which we introduced in 2021, and, of course, MacroMedia™ technologies, the industry game changer.

Could you please share your domestic and international sales activities?

Bühler is a Swiss-based technology manufacturer who operates in over 140 countries around the world. Founded in 1860, Bühler today provides its global services with approximately 13,000 employees, 37 production facilities and 100 local sales and service stations. Our Turkey team is part of Bühler's Middle East, Africa and India region, which is the third largest but has the highest growth rate and includes 3 production facilities. Furthermore, besides our Turkey sales team, which serves all industries locally; we also have the opportunity to benefit from the vast human resources and technical capabilities of the region. In this region additionally; Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are also managed from Istanbul.

How do you evaluate the development of the paints industry in Turkey and what is the importance of the Turkish market for Bühler?

It is possible to say that the paints industry in Turkey has been going through stages of development and globalization, especially in the last 10 years. Although the construction industry and, as a result of its driving effect, construction paints still cover a large part of production; the rapidly growing domestic market in industrial paint production and export potential from Turkey to the region are also striking. For this reason, we are experiencing a period in which the interest and investments of global players are increasing. In addition to the major players from the USA and Europe, the entry of Japanese companies into the sector seems to have increased both competition and export volume. At this point, it is very pleasing to see that Turkish manufacturers, in addition to the strong know-how and market experience they already have, now start to make technological and digital transformations that can keep up with global competition. Here we, as Bühler, are at the heart of this sector transformation, with an understanding that can think globally but act locally; we continue our mission with both machinery and technology, automation and high-quality service products and services. [caption id="attachment_145947" align="aligncenter"] Service Manager Çağdaş Özkan, Turkey General Manager Fırat Sağlam and Sales Manager Ersin Cantürk[/caption]

Bühler's motto is 'Innovations for Better World'. Based on this motto, what does innovation mean to you and what do you do in this field?

In addition to being a very popular concept, we are witnessing that innovation is unfortunately used as a marketing tool that has lost its meaning. First of all, I think that real innovation and the idea of the future are not things that companies can carry out on their own. For this reason, our belief is; to act in an understanding of stakeholder engagement with academia, manufacturers and suppliers, start-ups, associations and even our competitors, and to create a leverage effect in this context. As a result of this understanding, I would like to talk about our "CUBIC – Innovation Center" at our Bühler Switzerland headquarters, which we opened in 2019. In this facility, which we implemented with a budget of CHF 50 million, there are application laboratories of the technologies that include all of Bühler's business units in a 6,000 m² closed area. On the other hand, we work with world-leading universities and academics such as ETH, St. Gallen, EPFL, in collaborative work and R&D groups, in a structure where we provide both technological and financial support to more than 100 start-ups. A study by Harvard University reveals that in major global crises, only 9 out of every 100 companies emerge from the crisis stronger. And the most important common thing that companies reaching this 9% have done is investing in new technologies and innovation instead of cutting budgets or downsizing. In the global crisis environment created by the pandemic, Bühler allocated a budget of CHF 450 million for R&D and innovation in the last 2 years. As a result, we have introduced nearly 100 new technologies in many different fields in the last 2 years. We achieved this together. Reducing the energy spent in the fight against the climate crisis is one of the important points.  

Could you please share with us the steps you have taken in this regard as Bühler?

Every day, 2 billion people enjoy foods produced on Bühler equipment and 1 billion people travel in vehicles partly produced with Bühler machinery every day. 65% of flour, 60% of chocolate, 50% of aluminum casting auto parts, 40% of packaging inks and 30% of automotive paints in the world are produced with Bühler technologies. As a brand that has such an impact on both the industry and consumers, we feel directly responsible for nature. For this reason, as Bühler, we have signed 7 main articles within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that concern us. And for this, we work with all our strength and strive to achieve measurable and clear gains. We set the target of working with 50% less waste, 50% less energy and 50% less water by 2050 in the manufacturing and also in the use of our machines. We carry out our R&D studies and new technology projects in this direction. We have calculated the carbon footprints of all Bühler offices, service stations and production facilities worldwide. We are making investments to reduce them gradually.

Finally, could you please tell us about Bühler Turkey's targets for the next period?

As of 2023, we are transforming our service center in İzmir Kemalpaşa into an application and training center at the same time. Our customers will have the chance to test and see our wet grinding technologies with their own products in this center. In addition, both theoretical seminars and trainings and practical machine-technical trainings will be organized in this center. In addition, we are trying to meet our customers' needs in the fastest and highest quality way by doubling our entire spare parts warehouse, including grinding beads of all sizes. Finally, as I mentioned before, we are in talks with various companies on new partnerships that will serve the global community from Turkey. We will share the developments through your magazine.