Uzer Makina eyes North American market growth

KOCAELI, Turkey—Tire curing solutions provider Uzer Makina has opened a U.S. sales office as it aims to increase its business in North America.

Kocaeli-based Uzer Makina recently celebrated the official opening of its Uzer Americas Trading Inc. site in Naples, Fla.

The Turkish firm was founded in 1978 and serves the global tire industry with two categories of products: tire curing presses and tire curing molds.

Uzer Makina looks to use the new sales office in the U.S. to strengthen its relationships with business partners in North America, eliminate tire differences and to provide quick support locally, according to Pelin Ozkan, who is responsible for the firm's marketing and business development functions.

"The office is the beginning for the investments that we are going to make in America," he said. "In time, we are planning to open a workshop, too. With this workshop, we aim to give immediate support to our business partners about mold and press maintenance, press installation and commissioning, aftermarket sales and spare parts."

He added that Uzer still needs to determine whether the workshop will be built from scratch, or whether the firm will be able to utilize an existing workshop.

Uzer Makina currently gets 40 percent of its sales from Turkey, 30 percent from Europe, 10 percent from India, 5 percent each from North and South America, and the rest in other regions.

For the past 20 years, Uzer Makina was represented in the Americas by Taray International Corp., owned by CEO Tarik Ayasun. However, because of growth in Turkey and worldwide, Ozkan said it has decided to merge the "efforts and knowledge of both companies" and form the Uzer Americas Trading Co. entity.

"Our aim is to grow our business (across the) whole American continent," he said. "We are aware of the new greenfield projects that might be in the U.S., so we want to be in the center of the market and be more active. As Uzer Makina, we want to use the advantages of being in Europe geographically and politically, and make more business connections in the Americas."

The Uzer executive expects the majority of its growth in the Americas to come from new projects, but will pursue gaining business at existing tire facilities as well.

In addition, the company hired Ozcan Demirbas as general manger of Uzer Americas. He has more than 30 years of experience in the industry. His background includes stints at Pirelli in Italy, Alliance Tire Group in Israel and India, and most recently Yokohama in the U.S.

He is an accomplished manufacturing leader with an engineering project management background, according to Ozkan. "He is a performance-oriented and internationally seasoned leader with a successful history of over 30 years implementing lean and operational excellence in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the U.S. He is a transformational leader spearheading continuous process improvements across business units."

Having its headquarters and production on the same campus in Kocaeli enables the firm to control its production process and the quality of its goods, Ozkan said. Uzer Makina makes nearly all of its products in-house, rarely outsourcing labor or parts.

"This has a positive effect on our production quality and our prices," he said. "So we are in the market with our high-quality products with reasonable prices."

The Turkish firm also places a high emphasis on innovation. Over the past five years, it has renewed its CNC machines and added such new equipment as robotic welding, a laser engraving machine and a laser tracker for quality control.

"Uzer Makina's perspective is always making investment to its production line," Ozkan. "So we always push ourselves to strengthen our technology and develop new innovative solutions."

In addition, the firm also has built up a casting workshop that, after years of research by its in-house engineering staff, the company can produce molds using a casting method.

Uzer Makina also developed a Floating Column Press Technology, which Ozkan said is its signature on tire curing press machines. "Floating Columns help to make the mold height adjustment process automatically end in 10 seconds. The design is very popular in the market, and we hold an international patent for it," he said.

One of the biggest current demands from customers is energy saving solutions, and he said the firm is working closely with its business partners to make improvements in this area.

That includes energy-saving hoses, where Uzer Makina uses platen insulation in all the hydraulic presses it produces. Apart from this, it also offers insulation methods for valves and other press parts, and provides consultancy to its customers on energy saving.

Ozkan said one other goal to save energy is to develop electric tire curing technology.

Uzer Makina employs more than 400.