We performed a pleasant interview with Mr. Ali Çalışkan, CEO of Kordsa; we talked about success story of Kordsa. Ali Çalışkan gave information about Cokoon project.
Could you please tell us about yourself, your education and your professional background?
I was born in 1963 in Samsun. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Middle East Technical University. I joined Kordsa, in January 1986, as a Technical Office Engineer, and from then on, I had taken part in significant projects within Kordsa at various positions.
served at different managerial positions and as site operations director for Turkey and Nile Kordsa and played an important role in developing Kordsa’s capacity and enhancing market volume in Asia Pasific region.
Between 2010 and 2013, I served as President Director of Indo Kordsa, Kordsa’s subsidiary in Indonesia, and as Vice President in charge of operations between 2013 and 2015 at Kordsa. In July 2015 I was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.
As of April 2017, I undertook the role of CEO in Kordsa.
Could you please tell us how the company has changed from its foundation to now?
As Kordsa we operate in 3 main industries; tire and construction reinforcement and composites technologies. In 1973, we entered the tire reinforcement market which was a brand-new industry in Turkey with giant global competitors.
In this field, we now produce nylon and polyester yarn, tire cord fabric and single end cord products in our high technology facilities. Today, we are the world’s leading manufacturer of nylon and polyester yarn, tire cord fabric and single end cord products.
Over the years, we became the world’s market leader in nylon cord fabric and the 3rd biggest player polyester cord fabric manufacturing, in terms of turnover. To expand our knowledge in resin technology and weaving capabilities to various industries, we entered composite technologies and construction reinforcement markets.
What are the products and product groups of Kordsa? What are the industries you serve?
Our products in all three of our business lines ensure that many of the daily life products are safer, higher performing, more robust and more sustainable.
At out high-tech tire reinforcement facilities we manufacture tire cord fabric by using nylon 6.6, HMLS polyester, rayon and aramid yarn which form the skeleton of the tires that provides flexibility and durability, and single end cord by using synthetic yarns and natural fibers such as nylon, polyester, aramid and rayon.
We are the proud Reinforcer of one out of every three automobile tires and two out of every three aircraft tires worldwide. Kordsa develops innovative and unique intermediate products and applications for composites technologies for a variety of industries, notably aviation and automotive.
Our portfolio consists of a wide range of high quality and durable products for the aviation industry, massproducible products and visual parts for the automotive industry, flexible products for the sporting goods industries, and long-lasting products produced at low temperature for the maritime industry.
With our solution partner vision, in addition to fabric and resin development activities, our composite technologies also serve design, analysis, material library, prototype production in accordance with customers’ needs.
With the aim to be a solution partner, we are working on developing customized, cost efficient intermediate products for composites.
By adding advanced material technologies for the next generation transportation vehicles, we expanded our advanced composites technologies portfolio which we had formed with our investments in the US in 2018 and became a company that is capable of supplying a total range of materials.
This has also strengthened our product development capabilities. We develop synthetic fiber reinforcements in the construction reinforcement technologies to ensure sustain able and durable concrete structures.
Being the first Turkish product in the international synthetic fiber market, our synthetic fibers are highly preferred for many prestigious projects due to their ease-of-use, long lasting durability, quick applicability, low carbon emission and high performance.
Our synthetic fibers were recently used in the construction of Buca-Bornova Tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in Izmir, toll-gates of the Third Bridge on Bosphorus, Samsun Light Rail Transit System Project (Samsun Tram), Tekirdağ Asyaport (Turkey’s first transit container port), and Trabzon DSI Pressured Water-Conveyance Tunnel.
Could you tell us about your domestic and foreign sales activities? In which regions do you sell your products?
As Kordsa, we operate in strategic markets. In determining our investment strategies, we consider customer proximity and changing market dynamics, and take advantage of business opportunities that support our sustainable growth strategy.
At the beginning of 2017, our raw material supplier Invista in the United States announced that it will exit from production in Chattanoga, Tennessee. We were producing in the same courtyard and made an agreement with them to purchase the entire infrastructure and partly the machinery park with an investment of 4 million USD.
As of the first half of 2019, Europe, Middle East and Africa region has a 30% share in Kordsa total sales. With the power of the Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, a pioneering model in industry-university cooperation we continue to introduce our new technologies to the market and expand our product range in Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
The share of Asia Pacific, our second largest hub after Turkey, is 26%. We have 7 polyester lines in Indonesia where we have invested over 175 million USD since 2011. We are the only local polyester cord fabrics producer in South America.
As of the first half of 2019, this region has a 11% share in Kordsa total sales. In North America we are the leader in nylon cord fabric production, having a 33% share in total Kordsa sales.
We strengthened our presence in composites technologies in North America with the acquisition of Fabric Development, Textile Products and Advanced Honeycomb Technologies.
Following these investments, we acquired Axiom Materials, which provides advanced technology com sekposite materials for the next generation transportation vehicles as well as the aerospace industry and leads the composite market through its R&D studies.
With this acquisition, we have completed our advanced composite technologies portfolio and became the only worldwide qualified manufacturer of Oxide-Oxide ceramic matrix composites which is resistant to high temperature and used in aircraft engines.
Today, we reinforce the engines of those aircrafts that we are used to reinforce their tires, wings, hulls and the interior. We are a global player in the reinforcement technologies in a wide geographical area from USA to Asia Pacific including Turkey, USA, Brasil, Thailand, and Indonesia. We operate with around 4500 employees in our 12 facilities throughout 4 continents.
You have launched a new technology called Cokoon, developed jointly with Continental. Could you please tell us about this technology?
As Kordsa we had been working for 9 years in order to provide a sustainable solution to the industry. Our R&D team had worked day and night for 15.800 working hours, made 11.240 tests in 9 years. We joined forces with Continental, having the same vision with us.
Our new dip technology Cokoon does not require any additional cost. It is possible to adhese textile and rubber using the existing equipment. With Continental, without requesting any license fee, we enable anyone who joins the license pool to use the Cokoon technology.
In 6 months, 40 companies contacted us for Cokoon technology which we have introduced in Tire Tech 2019 Expo. We are in the sampling phase with 17 of these companies. We expect this dip technology to be the new industry standard.
To achieve it, we don’t only provide an innovative product but also an innovative business model. This free licensing model we have created, en- courages everyone to access the technology and develop it further. In this way, besides making it a standard in our own industry, we will carry our technology further and we will be able to expand its use in different industries and different fields.
Today, all industries are adapting to Digital Transformation. How about composites industry, to what extend could it adapt to this transformation?
As Kordsa, we are also leading the industry with production models based on our own Industry 4.0 applications. With the smart production systems, we have implemented, we aim to accelerate production and innovation processes with improved production quality and reduced errors.
For this reason, we strengthen our production processes by keeping our innovative perspective with a specific focus to open innovation and by closely following the digital transformation and developments of Industry 4.0 which include many fields such as intelligent robotic applications, big data management, cloud applications, IoT systems, mobile and virtual reality applications, simulation systems and cyber security.
We follow technologies that match our company strategies and targets, and that enable change and transformation in our production processes, as well as investing in applications that create value in efficiency, quality, cost and safety processes.
Along with the digital transformation, composites technologies and the areas of application of the composite material are improving day by day. Today, composites are used in so many ways throughout our everyday life and will be used even more widely in the future.
Especially smart composites and robotic applications are the materials of the future. In the coming period, we believe that it will be crucial to implement material-based engineering such as R&D, product development and manufacturing design, in interaction with the customer.
Therefore, materials science is a major science with strategic importance in the digital world. As for Kordsa’s material science studies, we have joint or individual projects. For example, at our Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, together with 16 project partners from 11 countries we work on DiCoMi project, a project on the development of systems, software and materials development in order to produce composite materials with 3D printer technology.
We now seek for opportunities in next generation material such as thin film and flexible electronics which are among smart materials of the digital era. Thin films already have a wide range of applications from TVs to smartphones or notebooks. Flexible electronics will be in our daily lives in the near future.
Applications like foldable display sheet will replace printed newspapers or tablets, robots with soft and flexible skin will look and feel like real skin. We put focus on this material of the future and launched “Thin Films and Flexible Electronics” R&D platform in partnership with Sabancı University.
We are already engaged in a new project in May 2019, Nanosis-1004. With this project, we aim to develop a new generation of flexible-type wearable healthcare sensors.
We are in contact with some international renowned universities, institutions and companies in Turkey, the US and Europe to extend our partnerships. We are also seeking opportunities to invest on a new lab and pilot machines suitable for flexible electronics technology.
Could you tell us about your composite material production techniques within the scope of new technological developments?
The main focus of our Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, bringing university and industry under the same roof, is carbon, aramid, and glass, for weaving of high-strength composite reinforcements, developing resin formulations, prepreg production and developing applications for use in various industries.
We are currently capable of weaving unidirectional and bidirectional fabrics of carbon, aramid, and glass from 200 g/m2 to 1500 g/m2 in 4 different weaving types either plain, twill, harness satin or basket. In addition, our product portfolio includes hybrid weaves where two different threads can be used.
At the center, we develop systems, software and materials in order to produce composite materials with 3D printer technology, produce high quality composite parts by using both traditional methods and robotic applications.
The lab is equipped with Robotic Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) for composite manufacturing, lab and industrial scale hot presses, robotic machining and abrasive waterjet machining of composites and metals, and additive manufacturing of composites. Our autoclaves produce denser, void free moldings.
It ensures to fabricate high strength/weight ratio parts from preimpregnated high strength fibers used mainly in the aerospace industry. The center includes another lab focusing on improving and enhancing existing processes as well as developing new hybrid processes for manufacturing multifunctional complex parts.
The lab focuses on azalmetal, high performance plastic, composite and hybrid additive manufacturing processes. With our acquisition in the US, we have expanded our competencies in advanced materials technologies with high growth potential.
We are capable to produce structural materials and interior parts materials that require high engineering for the aviation industry where we see great potential.
Finally, with the acquisition of Axiom Materials, the only worldwide qualified manufacturer of Oxide-Oxide ceramic matrix composites for aircraft engines, we now reinforce the engines of aircrafts, of which we had been reinforcing the wings, hulls and interior. We have completed our portfolio of advanced intermediate composite technologies.
What do you think are the conditions of being a global brand that transcends borders?
First of all, you must think globally, follow developments and trends, be proactive and lead change without resistance to change. With our “We Reinforce Life” mission, we aim to create sustainable value by providing innovative reinforcement solutions with high added value to our customers, employees, stakeholders and communities.
We lead change and transformation with our open innovation mindset. We shape the industry with our sustainability approach and R&D and innovation investments. This strengthens our global presence.
Could you tell us about your R&D and sustainability activities?
Sustainability is at the center of product development in the industries we currently operate. Kordsa also develops its product portfolio, putting sustainability at the center. In composite technologies, we reduce fuel consumption by making vehicles lighter and more durable and devel op new and sustainable technologies for next generation transportation vehicles.
We reduce friction resistance with our innovations in tire reinforcement technologies while we are working to ensure the durability and stiffness of concrete structures in construction reinforcement technologies.
Putting R&D and innovation at the heart of our business processes, we increased our patent portfolio by 22% from 2017 to 2018. As a result of our efforts to produce lighter and more durable tire and composite materials using less energy and materials, our number of patent applications reached 786 and the number of inventions reached 183 up until today.
We currently have two R&D Centers. In our first R&D Center in İzmit, we develop new products, processes and technologies for the tire and construction reinforcement markets. Our latest innovation in this field is a new green technology developed co-jointly with Continental that replaces 80-year-old formula with resorcinol and formaldehyde.
We called this revolutionary technology CoKoon. Now we are working on a free licensing. We have another ongoing project that we conduct with an open innovation approach providing sustainable solutions for efficient plastic recycling.
We are among 21 project partners from 11 countries of this project, namely PolynSPIRE, within the scope of Horizon 2020. Our second R&D center is located at the Composite Technologies Center of Excellence where R&D, innovation and production take place under the same roof. Established in 2016 at Teknopark,
Composite Technologies Center of Excellence is one of the few examples of the university-industry cooperation in the world and a leading example in Turkey, Researchers, designers, engineers, managers and staff of the production process,
PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members and entrepreneurs from incubators work together at the Center in co-operation with Sabancı University.
At the Composite Technologies Center of Excellence, we serve with an open innovation approach in all the phases of R&D circle starting from the basic research, continuing with the prototype production and ending with mass production in co-operation with various institutions and organizations and create innovate new technologies shaping the industry.
At our Center of Excellence, we continue to cooperate with universities and institutions from different countries for new projects such as the EU-funded project for the development of systems, software and materials in order to produce composite materials with 3D printer technol ogy. After our resin technology that reduces the curing time to 3 minutes, we have also developed dicy free CM14 resin.
We have developed a new groundbreaking e-glass prepreg in co-operation with Ford Otosan for light weighting is recently the top priority in the automotive industry. The new innovative leaf spring for heavy duty vehicles over 16 tons also includes structural health monitoring systems used for process optimization, part qualification and online health monitoring purposes.
We also have R&D activities on construction reinforcement materials. Our macro and micro synthetic fiber reinforcement products are preferred in many prestigious projects. We started to produce an improved version of KraTos, which differs with its high strength, in the new polypropylene monofilament fiber reinforcement line that we commissioned in June 2018.
When it comes to our sustainability activities other than sustainable product development, we are in the fourth year of our 2020 Sustainability Roadmap covering our 5-year goals and actions.
We see ensuring our own sustainability as the first step of sustainability, we always prioritize employee development, health and safety. In 2018, thanks to our safety projects such as the Occupational Safety Experience Center, we continued to work with zero accident targets across five continents and to support the personal and professional development of our employees through internal platforms that encourage the development of ideas and projects. In 2018, we provided an average of 36 hours of training to our employees.
As a global reinforcement brand, we have continued to make improvements in all of our operational processes as we respect the society and the environment, we are in. Over the years, we have gradually improved our performance with our R&D and TPM projects.
Continuous improvement of material, water and energy efficiency in production is among our priorities. In 2018, we saved $ 1.82 million by reusing our materials.
We reduce our waste every year with the measures we have taken at all our facilities regarding waste management, including the monitoring and reduction of carbon emissions. This year, we made environmental investment of $ 790 thousand within the scope of emission and waste management.
We continue to share our CDP Climate Change and CDP Water reports with the investors every year.
