A window on success Trakya Cam

A WINDOW ON SUCCESS

Established by the Şişecam group in 1978, Trakya Cam ranks among the top six flat glass companies in the world and is in the top four in Europe in terms of its production capacity. It currently produces a variety of glass products for use in the building, automotive, solar energy and home appliances sectors. Trakya Cam’s chairman, Teoman Yenigun, talked to Industry Europe about the company’s current positioning and its operations.

The Şişecam Group, whose own establishment dates back to 1935, is known to have pioneered the production of flat glass, tempered glass, automotive glass, mirror and insulation glass from 1967 to 1976 in Turkey. When Şişecam set up Trakya Cam, it became the first company to deploy float technology among any east European, Balkan, Middle Eastern and North African countries and had its first fully operational float glass line in 1981. Today it operates seven float glass lines and is among the top glass suppliers in the world. Mainly the automotive glass and home appliance glass products are designed for the specific needs of clients. This means that the company must establish very close relationships with clients from the inception of projects to the start of serial production. In addition to the domestic market, Trakya’s major markets are the Balkans and central Europe, the Middle East and Russia.

New investments in progress

The company is headquartered in Istanbul and currently has plants in three cities in Turkey. It is in the process of constructing a new flat glass plant in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, in order to meet the rapidly increasing demands of the Turkish market. It also has production facilities abroad, one of which is located in the city of Targovishte in Bulgaria. Additionally, as a result of a joint venture established with Saint-Gobain in 2009, it has a production facility in Ain El Sukhna, Egypt.

Mr Yenigun states that further investments in flat glass, mirror, coated glass and automotive glass will also be realised in Russia in partnership with Saint-Gobain. He continues by explaining that Trakya Cam is also investing in another production complex in Bulgaria. He highlights the successful collaboration with Saint-Gobain and says, “We believe that our

partnership with Saint-Gobain has been a successful collaboration. We believe that strategic cooperation and ventures in collaboration with other companies will play a key role in Trakya Cam’s future.” The company aims to expand and penetrate the markets they are involved in, mainly with its value added products.

An environmentalist future

According to Mr Yenigun, energy conservation and environmental protection have become the focal points of every nation, considering the robust growth of energy demand and the increasing CO2 emissions going into the atmosphere. Because of this fact, he says, products that consider the need for energy efficiency and renewable energy production have become the driving force for growth in the flat glass industry. As a result Trakya Cam is paying special attention to diversifying its products that will have a great importance within the context of sustainability.

“Trakya Cam puts emphasis on research that focused on products in the renewable energy area and multifunctional glass systems which decrease energy consumption and are environmentally friendly”, Mr Yenigun says. Within this framework, Şişecam and Trakya Cam conducted research projects and developed new multi-functional products for architectural applications and managed to achieve successful production trials for some of these products.

Mr Yenigun expects that coated glasses for use in various climates within a wide range of performance will have a major growth in the construction sector. He adds that in the renewable energy area, various glass products for solar energy systems, including low-iron glass and glass with anti-reflective coatings have vast growth potential.

He also draws attention to the incentives in the European automotive industry which are mostly provided for environmentally friendly technologies. He says that some applications have rapidly gained importance, such as reducing CO2 emissions as well as reducing the weight of vehicles, lowering the energy usage required for cooling, saving fuel and using lead-free materials for this purpose. He states that in line with this objective, in 2010 and 2011, Şişecam and Trakya Cam have carried out various research and development projects in the field of automotive glasses. As part of this project an original heat-reflecting car wind shield was developed and its initial trial productions were completed successfully. Proactive approach against the financial crisis

When the global financial turmoil hit the sectors where flat glass is used, Trakya Cam decided to pursue a proactive policy to adapt to the new circumstances. It intensified its regional operations to have wide access to the Turkish market and to raise the number of its customers and thus penetrated extensively into all market segments through product diversification. Regarding the strategies pursued in the export markets, Mr Yenigun states: “The serious turbulence in European and Russian flat glass markets was largely compensated by market share gains and increased sales in markets in the Middle East, Central Europe, the Balkans and North Africa, in line with our company’s market development activities.”

Mr Yenigun also outlines the fact that the company’s 2010 figures presented an uptrend in flat glass demand which had contracted in 2008 and 2009 due to the financial crisis. He points out that the recovery of the economy and specifically of the glass sector has been ongoing for some time and has been reflected in Trakya Cam’s operations, with the company experiencing a 17 per cent increase in sales revenue during 2010. n