Domestic and National Elevator Panel From SANTEK

“Domestic and National Elevator” panel was organized within the scope of the Industry and Technology Cooperation Board (SANTEK) activities carried out in cooperation with Bursa Provincial Directorate of Industry and Technology, Bursa Governorship, Bursa Chamber of Industry (BTSO) and BTSO MESYEB Elevator Test Center.

In the panel held at BUTEKOM Conference Hall on January 17, 2023, the road map for increasing the domestic production rate in the elevator sector was discussed. The panel, which brought together approximately 200 sector members from mainly Bursa, as well as Istanbul, Ankara, Eskişehir and Konya, started with opening speeches. Mehmet Latif Deniz, Bursa Provincial Director of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, took the floor first. Deniz stated that a protocol was signed with the Provincial Directorates of National Education and Health in order to make the elevators in public buildings safer by using the guiding and exemplary power of the public, and that the intensively used school and hospital elevators belonging to the public were ensured to comply with the regulation. He also said that by signing a protocol with Uludağ Electricity Distribution Co. (UEDAŞ), they determined the number and addresses of elevators in Bursa and ensured that they were inspected. Deniz stated that this project started as an exemplary practice and spread across Turkey with a protocol signed between the Ministry and EMRA.

Metin Şenyurt, Vice President of the BTSO Assembly, who took the floor second, said: “Nationalization efforts have gained momentum in many sectors, especially in the defense industry, in order to reduce foreign dependence, especially in the recent period. Today, we see a Turkey that has increased its domestic production rate in the defense industry from 25 percent to 80 percent. As a country, we have the power to do this in the elevator sector, as well. In this process, one of the most important projects supporting our elevator sector was the Elevator Safety Equipment Test and Development Center, which we implemented in cooperation with our Ministry of Industry and Technology within BTSO MESYEB. Our center became the first accredited test laboratory of our country in this field. It offers testing and development services for elevator safety brakes, buffers, speed regulators, elevator motors and motor brakes.” 

TSE President Mahmut Sami Şahin then took the floor and stated that the organization, which is accredited by TÜRKAK, has carried out approximately 1 million periodic inspection checks in nearly 60 provinces since 2012. He also said that they carried out over 4 thousand tests and inspection services within the scope of Market Surveillance and Inspection. 

Mehmet Bozdemir, Director General of Metrology and Industrial Products Safety of the Ministry of Industry and Technology, then took the stage and talked about the Ministry’s e-elevator project: “Within the scope of this project, we can access information such as the elevator installer, authorized service, type A inspection organization, inspecting engineer, technical manager, building manager and which parts and components are used. The main purpose of this project is to integrate with the municipalities, and we want to carry out the process from the project design to the manufacturing of an elevator together with the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization. Because a mistake in the project and subsequent manufacturing costs the consumer and the manufacturer a lot of money. We are developing a project that will be an example even for the European Union.” Bozdemir said that they took 22 test samples (speed regulator, brake and buffer) and sent them to MESYEB in order to carry out some audits in the sector in 2021 regarding the safety of elevator components and that the results shocked them. In these tests, 17 out of 22 products were found to be unsafe and the sad thing was that all of these 17 products were also domestic production. Three of the five safe products were imported products. “This picture made us focus on the component and parts manufacturers, and we started talking about what we could do as a ministry,” Bozdemir said. Bozdemir also stated that they have corresponded with the Ministry of Trade and requested that the inspection of imported products be carried out not only on documents but also in domestic test laboratories. 

Afterwards, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Saim Kılavuz, the Rector of Uludağ University and Mustafa Özsoy, Deputy Governor of Bursa made welcoming speeches.

Finally, Hasan Büyükdede, Deputy Minister from the Ministry of Industry and Technology gave a speech. After sharing general information about SANTEK and Bursa industry, Büyükdede presented general data about the Turkish elevator industry. He stated that the elevator sector is one of the rare strategic sectors that already offers a current account surplus. You can access all of this data in the Elevator Sector Report (Elevator World Turkey, January-February, page 20) in our previous issue. Büyükdede stated that according to production and sales data, half of our exports in the elevator sector consist of complete elevator sales and the other half consists of elevator parts exports, but when we take look at imports, almost all of the imports consist of complete elevator imports. He underlined that we should focus on complete elevator sales instead of selling elevator parts.

The Panel

After the Opening Speeches, the panel on “Domestic and National Elevator” was initiated. The panel was moderated by Ramazan Karakök, General Manager of MESYEB. The speakers at the panel were: Oktay Akman, Industrial Equipment Manager of Turkish Standards Institution; Yusuf Atik, Turkish Elevator Industrialists’ Federation Chairman; Zafer Güneş from Chamber of Mechanical Engineers Izmir Branch; Tolga Soğucak, Coordinator of Bursa Chamber of Commerce and Industry;  Engineer Gül Dölek and Dinçer Gonca, Head of Machinery Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Technology; Levent Akdemir, Metroplast General Manager and Cenk Ceylan, CEO of Arkel. 

Moderator Karakök stated that he has 50 years of production experience and asked the elevator component manufacturers from the sector to actively use this test center and benefit from all kinds of opportunities. 

Dinçer Gonca, who took the floor first in the panel, talked about the software developed by the ministry together with the Market Surveillance Inspection (MSI) to prevent unfair competition and said that we should question why complete elevators are still imported. He stated that some of the crises in the world have turned into an advantage for our country.

The second speaker was Gül Dölek, an expert on MSI at the Ministry of Industry. Dölek said that the non-conformity rates, which were around 60% when they first started MSI activities, dropped to 18-20 percent in 2022 and shared data on periodic elevator controls. He mentioned that despite the increase in the number of elevators, the decrease in the number of red labeled elevators is a positive development for the sector.

Yusuf Atik, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TASFED, stated that he has been in the sector since 1960 and revealed how far the sector has come until today by conveying his information and memories about the situation of the elevator sector in those years. Atik stated that the first productions in the elevator sector in Turkey started with some components such as motors and rails in Istanbul in the 1970s, and that we have reached a position where almost all components are produced in the 2000s. Atik remarked that the elevator sector, which started with zero exports, has become a sector where exports and imports have come to a break-even position in 2010 and has become a sector that gives a current account surplus since 2010. Finally, he pointed out that the opening of Vocational Schools for elevators in universities is one of the most important needs of the sector.

Levent Akdemir, who took the stand as a manufacturer of safety components, mentioned that he has been in the sector for 37 years and as a manufacturer of safety components, he mentioned the inadequacy of the testing facilities in the past. He remarked that the presence of such an institution provides manufacturers with an impartial institution where they can see their mistakes, which will increase the quality of their products.

Oktay Akman from TSE started his speech by stating that the approval and inspection bodies, both domestic and nation, operating in the elevator sector should be discussed. Akman said: “We have 23 approved bodies in the field of elevators in our country. Seventy-to-eighty percent of the safety components in our country are manufactured by four-to-five of these companies. With the intervention of MESYEB in the tests conducted within the scope of MSI, all nonconformities were brought to light. Unfortunately, our manufacturers also faced product recalls and penalties. We have 41 domestic inspection organizations in the field of annual periodic inspection, but we receive many complaints due to different practices in the field.”

Zafer Güneş from the Chamber of Mechanical Engineers, Izmir Branch mentioned the lack of engineers in the design processes and stated that engineers in the sector are experiencing the consequences of the inability of engineers to progress beyond signature authorization and said: “With the start of loaded tests in our elevators in 2018, many problems came to light. It was found that many components used did not actually meet the basic specifications of the standard. However, we see that this problem has improved to a great extent in 2023.” Güneş concluded by saying, “Unfortunately, only our Ministry of Industry supports the elevators. For example, we have seen that the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, which issues regulations, said that the elevator sector was not within their field of work, and they did not back the sector at all.” He underlined that the sector should also be embraced by other ministries, too.

Cenk Ceylan, the CEO of Arkel, took the floor last in the panel and explained how Arkel started as a company founded by two Turkish partners and managed to become both a corporate company and a global brand with 70 percent exports today. Ceylan stated the following: “Our country was one of the biggest markets in the world until 2018. Therefore, the size of the domestic market in the country was sufficient for manufacturers. However, with the contraction in the domestic market, these companies turned their attention to exports. However, not every company was fully ready for this.” He also added that Arkel was second in the world in terms of new product development, behind its Chinese competitors. He said Arkel has been working for the last four years to write modules on preventive and predictive maintenance by collecting data from thousands of elevators installed all over the world.

Following the panel, MESYEB Elevator Test Center was opened with the participation of all guests. After the ribbon cutting, the test center was visited. For the first time in Turkey, the laboratory where geared and gearless motors were tested was explained to all guests practically by Tolga Soğucak, Coordinator of Bursa Chamber of Industry and Trade, MESYEB Elevator Test Center.