Interview with Tuncay Dursun, Marketing Manager of VIG Makina Boya Sistemleri

We conducted an enjoyable interview with Tuncay Dursun, Marketing Manager at VIG Makina's Coating Systems division. Dursun provided detailed information about the products and services offered by VIG Makina.

Could you briefly tell our readers about yourself, your educational background and professional experience?

First of all, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to conduct such an interview on behalf of our company. My name is Tuncay Dursun, and I was born in 1974 in Kocaeli. After completing primary, secondary and high school in the Kocaeli Gulf region, I graduated from the Mechanical Engineering department at Istanbul University. I have accumulated approximately 25 years of experience in this profession since 1995. At VIG Makina, I have held various positions over the past approximately 20 years. For the last 3 years, I have been serving as Sales and Marketing Manager.

Could you provide information about VIG Makina's founding process and the stages it has gone through until today? What is VIG Makina's current structure?

VIG Makina is a family company founded in 1991 by Vedat Güngören and İnci Güngören. VIG Makina is actually a machinery manufacturing firm that initially had the opportunity to work with leading German companies in the coating sector and adopted the working culture and business discipline from these companies as its principles. Subsequently, it became a company producing its own technologies, setting as its goal to maintain product quality and technology at the highest level, just like a German company. In recent times, VIG Makina has made significant progress both financially and technologically. Our company has a machinery manufacturing factory in Gebze, Kocaeli, totaling 15,000 m² with 5,000 m² of enclosed space. We also have another manufacturing facility in Izmir with a total of 2,500 m², of which 1,300 m² is enclosed space.

Which sectors does VIG Makina primarily serve, and what types of products does it supply? Could you provide information about VIG Makina's products, brands and services?

VIG Makina's main areas of operation include: machinery for aluminum sheet production, surface cleaning for automotive and rail systems, as well as cataphoretic painting facilities, robotic and manual shot blasting-painting systems. We commission many projects, including those in construction, on a turnkey basis and provide training for them. Depending on the customer's request, we can provide an expert person to the customer's service for operating the facility we have set up.

Could you tell us about your domestic and international sales activities? What types of products do you primarily sell to which regions domestically and internationally?

Domestically, we serve all of Turkey, but primarily the Marmara, Aegean and Central Anatolia regions. In these regions, we carry out the installation of cataphoretic facilities and robotic/manual painting cabins for companies known in the sector. Particularly last year, we completed Turkey's largest cataphoretic facility in terms of tank capacity. Internationally, we have another company called EuroVIG in Poland. Through this company, we can also provide services abroad. Our office there serves as our European branch and we can also provide service support through this office. We also provide similar consulting services in the Ankara region to a bus manufacturing company. Here we have a specialized team that immediately responds to all types of defects, including all painting cabins made by competing companies. The duty of our team is to immediately identify any problems that would disrupt the painting process and work towards resolving these issues. Before we started providing our service at this company, the re-coat ratio (vehicles being returned and reprocessed due to painting errors) was quite high, but through our service and improvements made, it has been reduced to 5%. This ratio is equivalent to the accepted error rate in serial automobile factories.

What kind of work does VIG Makina carry out in the fields of innovation and R&D? Do you have projects developed under university-industry cooperation, and if so, what are they?

In this regard, we can cite our robotic shot blasting facility as an example of work done for the first time by a domestic company in Turkey. In addition, we have begun work to establish our own in-house R&D production center. In line with the customer's special requests, we will conduct a preliminary setup in this facility, allowing the customer to see these new technologies firsthand. In this way, our customers will have the opportunity to test and experience these technologies before purchasing them. At this facility equipped with robot technology, we will also be able to conduct research on processing and painting parts with new technologies. Additionally, we continue to cooperate with ITU (Istanbul Technical University) within the scope of university-industry cooperation.

Could you provide information about VIG Makina's environmental policy and sustainability approach? What can you tell us about your work related to occupational health and safety?

As VIG Makina, we are very sensitive about the filtration of waste resulting from the process. When submitting our offers to customers, we pay attention to the use of the most suitable equipment in this regard. We select equipment such that emission values remain below legal limits. We always warn and guide companies on this matter. Although it is a cost-incurring factor, filtration equipment is of great long-term importance for companies both in terms of avoiding penalties and in establishing an environmentally conscious production approach. Our established facilities are certified as compliant with standards through measurements conducted by independent accredited organizations. Additionally, in water-filtered cabins, we dewater the paint sludge using centrifuge technology to achieve 95-100% dryness and remove it in dry form. When the water in the pool needs to be discharged, we are able to send this waste in a clean manner and dispose of it without polluting the environment. Within our company, regular training is provided on occupational health and safety, making our employees more aware. In our company, great care is taken regarding the use of safety equipment.

What criteria are given priority when VIG Makina formulates investment plans? Does VIG Makina have investment plans for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

As I mentioned earlier, we have investment plans for our R&D production center. In addition, to keep up with our increasing orders, we plan to increase the capacity of our existing manufacturing hall by 50%. We plan to complete all these investments within this year.