Interview with Necip Polat, Founder and General Manager of Euro İstanbul

We conducted an interview with Necip Polat, Founder and General Manager of Euro İstanbul. Polat provided information about the products and services offered by Euro İstanbul.

Could you briefly tell our readers about yourself, your educational background and professional experience?

I entered the sector in 1974 with Gür Galvano Kimya, which I founded. At this company, which continued operations until 2008, I sold chemicals used in electrolytic plating installations. Over a 34-year period, while supplying chemicals to the sector, I acquired extensive knowledge about electrolytic plating processes. The foundation of Euro İstanbul was laid with the experience I gained through Gür Galvano Kimya.

Could you provide information about Euro İstanbul's establishment process and the stages it has gone through to reach today?

While Gür Galvano Kimya continued its operations, I founded Euro İstanbul in 2002 to manufacture electrolytic plating installations. In the initial phase, our company started production with manual plating installations and soon began manufacturing and installing fully automatic plating systems. We continuously upgraded our technical staff and machinery in line with evolving market conditions. To best respond to domestic and international demand, we established our Beylikdüzü plant with 5,000 m² of covered space in the Beylikdüzü Marble Workers Industrial Estate in Istanbul in May 2013, and we continue our manufacturing operations at the same location. Our company, which has specialized in the design, engineering and manufacturing of automatic and manual systems, has also become a trusted brand in the manufacturing of surface treatment accessories. Our company, which quickly became synonymous with quality in the domestic market, has increasingly made its presence felt in international markets. We currently manufacture plating installations made of high-quality components that conform to international standards for many countries and carry out on-site installation of these systems.

What types of products does Euro İstanbul mainly supply to which sectors? Could you provide information about Euro İstanbul's products, brands and services?

In addition to manufacturing and installing manual plating systems, our company manufactures and installs automatic plating systems, including hoist and barrel types. We work across a very wide range, and I can cite as examples Zinc Plating Systems, Nickel Chrome Plating Systems, ABS Plating Systems, and Anodizing and Hard Anodizing Systems that we manufacture and install. In addition to simple centrifugal dryers with adjustable speed and temperature for rapid and economical drying of plated materials, we also manufacture automatic drying, passivation and lacquering lines for series production and tonnage-based targets. We also manufacture various products used in electrolytic plating installations. Cartridge and disc filters used for filtration of plating chemicals, PP and PVC centrifugal fans used in facility ventilation systems, gas scrubbing towers and mist eliminators used to remove gases released into the working environment and clean them before discharge to the atmosphere are examples of these products. Additionally, in our company, we manufacture and sell various accessories used in every type of bath for electrolytic plating processes, from Titanium to PVDF, including blower piping inside the baths and ejector piping.

Could you tell us about your domestic and international sales activities? What types of products are you predominantly selling to which regions domestically and internationally?

We began expanding internationally with our first fully automatic plating system manufacturing in 2005, and today our international sales capacity has exceeded our domestic capacity. We manufacture high-quality plating systems that conform to international standards and carry out on-site installation of these systems for many countries, particularly those in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. France, Romania, Slovenia, Greece, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Israel, Egypt and Lebanon are among the first countries that come to mind as destinations for our exports. We are currently manufacturing a Fully Automatic Acidic Zinc Plating System and a Fully Automatic Nickel Chrome Plating System for Bosnia and Herzegovina in our factory. We plan to install one of these systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina in April and the other in May. We will install the manual silver and gold plating system that we completed in 2018 in Lebanon in February. For the installation of four fully automatic plating systems we completed in 2018, we are awaiting the completion of the factory building in Russia. We have distributors in Slovenia, Greece, Russia, Egypt and Israel. We aim to increase the number of our distributors in the future and, accordingly, expand our export and production capacity.

Can we learn your views on innovation and R&D? What are the technologies that have recently come to the fore in the sector?

Our goal is to see our company at the top of the list of plating system manufacturers preferred internationally for technology and quality. Therefore, as a company, we attach great importance to innovation and understand the value of innovation. The most important feature that distinguishes our sector from other sectors is that we produce beyond series manufacturing. We see ourselves as a tailor who measures according to the customer and makes the suit. We manufacture systems based on the work the customer will do, the capacity expected from the system, and the area where the system will be installed, and one system we manufacture is certainly never identical to another. Therefore, this alone creates a driving force for our company's R&D activities. In addition, to develop our technology and product range, we are making R&D investments in both qualified personnel recruitment and necessary equipment. We have recently begun to reap the fruits of the R&D investments we have made. In 2017, we installed our first Weighted and Vibratory Automatic Loading-Unloading Station for a customer in İzmir. This station, which resulted from approximately one year of R&D work, allows interlocking screws that must be opened before plating to be dumped into a vibration trough with an elevator bucket, and at optimal vibration frequencies according to the product, the screws are separated from each other, automatically weighed and automatically discharged into the facility drums in the desired weights. This reduces labor and enables better plating quality to be achieved. In 2018, we also developed our first lateral robots, which move on a single rail. In this way, we now have the capability to install fully automatic plating systems in factories with limited space.

Could you provide information about EURO İSTANBUL's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you say about your work related to occupational health and safety?

The health and safety of our employees come first for us. In this regard, we fulfill all necessary local and international obligations with the awareness of our responsibility. While providing sustainable and stable returns, we care about the health of our employees, our community and our consumers, fulfill our corporate social responsibility obligations and operate as a company that respects the environment. We are aware of our responsibility towards the environment. In our facility ventilation systems, we design gas scrubbing towers that will clean gases released to the atmosphere at levels exceeding international standards, and we fulfill all responsibilities incumbent upon us to leave a habitable world for our children.

What criteria are prioritized when establishing Euro İstanbul's investment plans? Do you have investment plans for Euro İstanbul for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

The manufacturing of a system varies depending on its size, but typically takes about 2-3 months. Therefore, when we manufacture two systems simultaneously in a three-month period, we experience intensive activity, and when we are not manufacturing systems, we experience slack periods. Since we depend on our customers' investment plans, it is difficult for us to make medium-term plans. Therefore, when formulating our investment plans, we make moves to increase our production capacity while taking into account the global economic climate. In 2017, we doubled both our production area and machinery. We have some projects oriented towards series manufacturing for 2019. We plan to fill the idle time from system manufacturing with these projects.