Dear BEYSAD Readers; In this issue, we are with a much esteemed member of BEYSAD, who makes us proud with their development: Hatko Group Board Member and Hatko Electronics General Manager Mr. Fahir Han. Mr. Han shared with us the success story of Hatko and the milestones of the company throughout the years. We would like to thank you for his time and here present their beautiful development story that can be a guide for us all. Could you please introduce yourself? I am Fahir Han. I am Hatko Group Board Member and General Manager of Hatko Electronics. I graduated from Austrian High School and then, studied Economics at Georgetown University in the USA. Having worked in banking in New York and London for 14 years, I joined the Hatko Group. Could you tell us about Hatko Electronics and its operations? Which sectors do you provide service with? Hatko Electronics is the leading company in Turkey for providing white goods, automotive and electrics/electronics main industry and suppliers with precise metal forming and plastic injection products. It is specialized in terminal and connector products. Additionally, it offers corrosion-resistant and high quality terminals to its customers with Turkey's only electrolytic continuous coating facility. Hatko Electronics with its own molding room and construction departments, can produce metal molds and cutting-edge plastic injection molds in a progressive way and in 1000 strokes per minute, thereby both meeting its own need for molds and responding to the needs of its customers for custom precise metal and plastic injection product projects. Could you tell us about your export rates and which countries do you export the most? We export approximately 40% of our products to 5 continents of the world. We fulfill most of our exports to Europe. What distinguishes you from your competitors? We think that Hatko Electronics has the most advanced technology in Turkey in terms of metal forming molds with the technology we brought from Germany. With these molds and our cutting-edge fast-producing metal printing machines, we are able to provide our customers with high quality products for affordable prices. Additionally, with our over 30 years of experience in terminal and connector sector, we can provide our customers with technical support in any matter including use and technical details. Could you tell us about your new investment operations? Hatko Electronics completed its new selective coating facility and water recycling investment for R&D purposes last year. Moreover, we invested in two highest-technology machines for our molding room. Besides these machines, last year we bought one and this year two metal printing machines. In 2018, we will engage a new coating facility. Our R&D Center has been quite recently approved by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology. We congratulate them and we would like to ask questions about the process, since it might set a good example to other members of ours. What triggered you to make this decision? Our number one reason for building an R&D Center is to encourage R&D activities within our company. As you know, since for a center to be called an R&D Center, you need to structure your R&D operations in an order demanded by the government and make sure your R&D operations yield concrete results. Considering these prerequisites will bring great benefits to our company, we decided to build an R&D Center. Where do you start to achieve success with your operations? We started off by meeting the requirements for an R&D Center demanded by the Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology within the company. The most important requirements include dedicating an area for an R&D Center within the company, preparing an R&D organization chart, and having adequate engineering product and human resources structure. What is the required company infrastructure? Can anyone who says “I want to become an R&D Center” be accepted and succeed? In order to become an R&D Center, you have to be developing new products in your field. In addition to engineering activities, you have to have a solid infrastructure and show it to the state, which requires a good human resources structure. Moreover, the financial data regarding these operations should be kept well and reported to the state. For all of these, your company needs to be in good shape in terms of human resources and engineering infrastructure. Which incentive mechanism have you benefited from at what rates? Since we have just built our R&D Center, we are just starting to benefit from incentive mechanisms. These include certain tax incentives for R&D employees and and depreciation incentives for investment expenses spent on projects. It is still at an early stage, but how have you benefited from this already? What are your expectations in the short and long run? First of all, we can see clearly that our company has gained an R&D viewpoint. Since the system requires you to have new projects, we constantly think how to improve our products and how to improve ourselves. This way of thinking is adopted both by employees and the executive team. In the short run, the benefit is this viewpoint, and in the long run, we are sure we will contribute greatly in our company and country by creating new products. I assume that company employees have important duties, responsibilities and a busy schedule from the very start to the installation stage. Could you tell us more about that? The most important subject to pay attention while building an R&D Center is getting the support of already busy employees, which means an extra tight schedule for them. To avoid this, we hired new employees to grow our engineering staff and to have people to support our employees in procedural subjects. How was 2017 for your sector and what are your expectations of 2018? I think that 2017 was very positive for our sector. Turkey continued to grow in both white goods and automotive sectors and we experienced the positive effects of this growth in the company. We expect the same for 2018. How do you see the development of Industry 4.0 in Turkey? Does Hatko Electronics have any related operations and actions? I am sure that especially R&D Centers and the incentives which they will benefit from will take Turkey forward in terms of Industry 4.0. We, Hatko Electronics, continuously improve ourselves regarding data and job analysis. Additionally, we keep working on automated production in our molding room and monitoring this production. What are your thoughts on and expectations of BEYSAD? We are proud of BEYSAD and its operations for our country and for our sector. From sector visits to other countries and conferences to training and events, we believe that BEYSAD offers new opportunities to our company every day. What we expect of BEYSAD is to keep up its innovative work.
1 March 2018
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