Interview with Hayri Ünal, General Manager of Netzsch Türkiye

We conducted an engaging interview with Hayri Ünal, General Manager of Netzsch Turkey, in which we discussed the technologies the company uses, its goals for coming years, and the advantages it will bring to the industry.

Could you tell our readers about yourself and your professional background?

My name is Hayri Ünal. I am the General Manager of Netzsch Turkey. I have been in the sector since 2006. I know many chemical companies, general chemical firms, and paints and coatings manufacturers in Turkey and continue to serve them. I graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department at Technische Universität Clausthal in Germany. I completed my MBA in International Trade in Canada with distinction.

Could you discuss your success story in the sector and the company policy you have adopted?

Our company, Netzsch, is one of the world leaders in its field and sector and has achieved significant successes. The main reason behind our success is our ability to serve very different sectors. In addition to wet and dry grinding, we provide services in general chemistry, paints and coatings, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, food, chocolate, and industrial minerals, and we produce technologies and machinery suited to these applications. Therefore, these multiple perspectives lead us to success. As you can appreciate, if a company develops its technology to a certain point and then remains in that sector, it cannot be very open to innovations. However, in our company, we have extensive capabilities. In grinding technology, if you perform wet grinding in one sector, you can simultaneously work on dry grinding as well. The more you know the technology, the broader your horizon becomes, which also causes the company's horizon to expand. "Proven Excellence" is our company's new slogan, and the secret of Netzsch's success lies in this slogan.

Which sectors do you serve?

First, I would like to tell you about Netzsch Holding. Netzsch Holding was founded in 1873 in the city of Selb and originated from the ceramics sector. Netzsch Holding has 3 business divisions: pumps, grinding & dispersion, and thermal analysis. Netzsch Pumps, which goes by the name nemo pump, currently holds a 25% share of the world's helical pump market and is the largest group in our company. Slurry pumps are used in the food sector but are also used in the oil sector, where we generate the largest part of our revenue. Netzsch Thermal Analysis Equipment is used to design products for applications such as materials research and development, quality assurance, and process optimization. As Netzsch Turkey, we serve "Grinding and Dispersion" technologies in 5 different sectors. These are: our main business line chemistry; paints and coatings, inks, resin production, and agricultural chemicals. We can address dry grinding, wet grinding, and dispersion as a whole in all these sectors. We have subdivided our second business line, the food sector, into two subsections: chocolate machinery and technologies and dry food technologies. Our third group is the cosmetics and pharmaceutical sector. There is a very large market in Turkey with approximately 1,200 cosmetics companies, but the number of companies working with us is around 20-25. The situation is different in pharmaceuticals, where we work in the field with international players. Our fourth sector has a very broad sector focus, with minerals, industrial machinery, and all types of turnkey projects, mills and separators. Our fifth group will begin this year under the heading "Global Services."

What is your product portfolio? What criteria do you consider in determining your product diversity?

Let me first mention our product criteria. Our product criteria are divided into several segments. These include environmental consciousness and energy consumption factors. In developing our product technologies, we are moving entirely toward innovations that countries, sectors, or technology need. We constantly think about how to develop products that companies need and how we can conduct research and development for new products, sometimes within ourselves and sometimes together with companies. Our product portfolio is quite extensive. We have dispersion machines operating on different principles, various types of wet grinding mills, and systems capable of micronization grinding in dry and wet form or grinding at nano scales. In addition, we carry out turnkey projects in the mineral sector, cosmetics sector, and chocolate sector. Therefore, our portfolio is very broad, and there is no other international company with such an extensive portfolio besides us.

Could you discuss your domestic and international sales activities?

Netzsch Global has produced a grinding system and technology suitable for grinding materials inside lithium batteries. These are mainly long-lasting lithium batteries used by companies that manufacture electric car batteries worldwide. Netzsch completed a complete turnkey project for a company based in America that produces batteries for Tesla vehicles. We are the world leader in this sector, and of course this is a major success. Therefore, we have clearly stated where Netzsch Global is headed in this way. Another recent success of ours is the turnkey projects we have undertaken with world-renowned agricultural chemical companies; our reference list in this sector is quite rich. Our activities in Turkey involve providing services and setting up machinery and systems for both chemical companies and food companies as well as mineral companies domestically and installing mills. Internationally, as Netzsch Turkey, we are currently completing a complete turnkey facility for a paints and coatings company. In conclusion, all these experiences are the result of synergy created through mutual discussions within the Netzsch family.

What does technology mean to Netzsch? How do you connect the products you manufacture with technology?

In Netzsch product technology, there are certain criteria, and we manufacture within these criteria. In general, we produce high-performance machines that are "User Friendly," easy to use, comfortable, generate few breakdowns, and are serviced very quickly when breakdowns occur. All of this results from extensive technological knowledge accumulation. For this reason, technology is very important to us.

Could you discuss your research activities, product development, and process optimization?

In our research and development activities, we aim to ensure that all our machines are optimized to be beneficial to consumers, use the cheapest spare parts, and require the shortest maintenance time. In addition, we optimize all our systems by using certain technologies around the world. For example, the ceramic inner body of mills enables faster heat transfer. In this way, companies prevent the products they produce from reaching the maximum temperature point. By using Silicon Carbide (SiC) as the body material, we eliminated the product heating problem. So how did we achieve this? Because technology and knowledge accumulation gave us the opportunity to use Silicon Carbide (SiC). And we immediately applied it to our products. As a result, we have carried out successful research and development work. The most important work here began with our Spain factory in the production of digital ceramic inks, and currently approximately 70% of the machines in which digital inks are produced worldwide belong to Netzsch.

Could you discuss your activities in personal care and home care?

Four years ago, Netzsch acquired the Vakumix company based in Bremen, Germany, and now operates as Netzsch Vakumix, serving worldwide. We manufacture mixing and homogenization machines for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors. To give examples of the main product groups, we can list personal care products such as shampoo, cream, toothpaste, hair products, gel, and colored cosmetics, as well as various home care products like cleaning products. For example, a world-renowned company manufactures toothpaste on 6 Netzsch machine lines in Germany, and this product is sold worldwide, including in Turkey. Therefore, we have ambitious operations in the personal care field.

Our references are also very strong in the pharmaceutical sector. Apart from documentation, I can say that our machines for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals are similar.

Could you provide information about the latest product you have introduced to the market? What technology and features does this product have?

We are currently launching new products in parallel with each sector's development. In wet grinding, our unique dispersion machine Epsilon and the highest efficiency fine grinding bead mill Neos with high flow rates and mechanical properties are recent products we have introduced to the market. In dry grinding, I have a new product to mention, especially for the mineral sector, and its name is Pamir. The name comes from the Pamir Mountains. This is a mill technology with which we perform micronized grinding on industrial minerals at high tonnages in dry form using bead mills, with the condition that the amount of energy per ton is very low. This new product of ours will be on the market soon. We have a very special pilot facility in Kütahya for a particular sector. To illustrate with an example, from a 1,000-liter mineral mill—which is very small—we obtain 20 tons of product. This pilot facility is quite an important innovation and technology for both the sector and us.

What innovations do you aim to realize in the coming years? What advantages will these innovations bring to Netzsch and your customers?

In the coming years, in parallel with our country's development, our greatest goal is to bring all these new technologies, systems, and technological products we have mentioned together with our customers and offer a more beneficial product, and as a result, provide companies with a quick return on their investment. If we achieve this, companies win, the sector wins, and Turkey wins. Innovations bring new initiatives. There are currently many known but unapplied minerals in Turkey, with research by organizations such as Eti Maden and TÜBİTAK. These minerals need to be extracted and presented to industry and then to the world market. As Netzsch, we are working quite seriously on this matter. We know that our work will provide our country with high value-added products. Using various technologies, customers make their investments as soon as possible, and if quality increases and as a result all these are reflected in the product, the product's quality improves. Thus, a much more competitive atmosphere is created in the world market. Our goals as Netzsch are in this direction.