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TURKEY
Bureau Veritas, and others.
“We have the capacity to manufacture autoclaves from 12 to 24 tyres, and we have also supplied 28 tyre autoclaves to the US market, customised as required,” informed Yasin Sarikulak, Project Sales Engineer, AKAR MAKİNA SAN. ve. TİC. A.Ş.
When asked if Akar is open to joint ventures with a company for instance based in India as it has been trying to enter the high potential India market for quite some time, Yasin emphasised, “We do receive queries for JVs even from India, but management insists on making the equipment right here to have firm control over product quality.”
Akar has supplied autoclaves to Indian tyre producers like Alliance
Tyre Group (ATG), Tyre Technocrats, and has supplied a lab size autoclave to MRF recently. Ruling out any further expansion plans, he stated, “We are running at maximum capacity, therefore we have no need to invest in the current factory. However, we have opened a second factory in Eskişehir for welding operations.” Both facilities are close to big cities like Istanbul, Bursa and Ankara and important ports.
Earlier this year, Akar Makina signed a strategic partnership with Italian company Marigo, according to which it supplies precure autoclaves to their clientele, as Marigo has expertise in making hot presses.
On average, Akar is growing at the
rate of 10 per cent annually in its domestic and international business. On annual capacity, Yasin said, “We have the capacity to produce 30-40 autoclaves mix between the varied industrial sectors covered by us.” Interestingly, Akar Makina is upbeat due to the KOSGEB scheme under which the Turkish government supports small and medium enterprises who wish to enhance their infrastructure and capacity. The government refunds up to 30 per cent of the project cost.
“This is really good for equipment producers like us as, if a customer keen to invest in plant equipment 2-3 years from now, the KOSGEB program leads companies to pre-plan their investment in the machinery,” Yasin said. Following the
announcement of the support programme, around 20 companies have already contacted Akar for plant machinery. “We hope to exceed our annual target in 2017,” he said.
Akar has also launched a new OTR package called ‘OPTIPACK’ to retread tyres by the Orbitread process. The programme, launched a couple of months ago, offers a compact OTR autoclave for tyres up to 25”, which is the most popular size. “This will attract companies with relatively low investment plans, not least because there is a requirement for compact equipment which offers early pack back on investment costs.” Akar says it is already in the midst of realising a couple of projects.
The range of compact OTR machinery has been launched largely to cater to the price sensitive segment of the market considering challenges in the retreading industry, Yasin adds, “Diminishing profit margins and the rising costs of production mean that this machine will help smaller players realise their investments in shorter time period,” he said.
Bandag to
Focus on
Capacity
Utilisation at
Izmit
Franchisee
Bridgestone Bandag has 20 franchisees spread around Turkey and claims to control a 30-35 per cent share in the TBR retread market, with all the franchisees together retreading about 130,000 truck tyres annually. “Turkey’s new TBR market is around 1.8 million per annum and about 550,000 truck tyres are retreaded each year,” informed Ahmet Kurtulus, Engineer, Bandag
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