‘Domestic and National Machinery’ Movement by Textile Machinery Manufacturers and Academicians
The ‘1st National Textile Machinery and Systems Symposium’, organized to reduce the foreign dependence of Turkish textile industry on machinery and machinery technologies, was held at the Auditorium Hall of Bursa Academic Chambers Union (BAOB) Campus. The symposium, organized in cooperation with Textile Machinery and Accessories Industrialists Association (TEMSAD), Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), Chamber of Textile Engineers (TMO) Bursa Branch and Bursa Uludağ University (BUU) Textile Engineering Department, lasted for 2 days.
TEMSAD President Adil Nalbant, Turkish Textile Finishing Industrialists’ Association (TTTSD) Chairman Dr. Vehbi Canpolat, Turkish Home Textile Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TETSİAD) Chairman Hasan Hüseyin Bayram, Uludağ University Rector Ahmet Saim Kılavuz, Chamber of Textile Engineers Bursa Branch President Hale Güler, as well as many representatives of the sector and academic chambers and students attended the symposium, in which the ITM 2024 Exhibition is also among the sponsors.

TEMSAD Chairman Adil Nalbant
‘‘The Only Sector We Can Compete with the World: Textile’’
Delivering the opening speech of the symposium, TEMSAD Chairman Adil Nalbant talked about the importance of textile for the Turkish economy. He stated that Turkey exports nearly 1 billion dollars worth of machinery and imports 2.4 billion dollars worth of machinery. Nalbant said, ‘‘8 percent of the machines produced worldwide come to our country. Dyeing and finishing machines constitute 75 percent of the machines we export. Textile is the only sector where we can compete with the world. The world is being rebuilt after the pandemic. There is a global economic war. Everyone will work for their own needs. That is why I attach great importance to domestic machinery. It is necessary to complete the necessary foundation with the joint force of the machinists, industrialists and the state. I wish this symposium to be a blessing for our industry.’’
‘‘We have to do our part in the field of textile machinery’’
Uludağ University Rector Prof. Dr. Ahmet Saim Kılavuz, who pointed out that the textile department used to admit students with higher scores than the Faculty of Medicine in the 1980s, but even the quotas were not filled in the following years, expressed: ‘‘In recent years, interest in the textile department has increased thanks to the scholarships given with the support of textile associations. Quotas have reached 100 percent occupancy rate.’’ Kılavuz told his memory about a textile machinery exhibition that they attended in Barcelona in 2019 as follows: ‘‘We had tears in our eyes while walking around the stands of Turkish companies at the exhibition. There were machine manufacturers from all over Turkey. In the afternoon, I felt a little embarrassed when I visited the stands of South Korea and Germany, because they had already started automation in machinery. We need to get to that position now. We see the successes in the defense industry. While there are great works done by young people at TEKNOFEST, we have to do our part in the field of textile machinery. Our duty was to add the main branch of textile machinery to our departments.’’
‘‘Good results will emerge from this symposium’’
Aykut Üstün, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TMMOB Chamber of Textile Engineers, said that they celebrated their 30th anniversary as the Chamber of Textile Engineers. Indicating that they are happy to bring textile machinery manufacturers and academicians together in this important year, Üstün said, ‘‘We are together for the domestic and national move. Very good results will emerge on the occasion of this symposium.’’
‘‘Our aim is to support the production of local and national projects’’
Hale Güler, President of Bursa Chamber of Textile Engineers Bursa Branch, expressed the following: ‘‘We set out with the motto ‘Give direction to textile with your own technology’. During the symposium, domestic machinery manufacturers will provide R&D and innovation training. Manufacturers serving in branches such as pretreatment, dyeing and embroidery took their place in this symposium. Our aim is to support the production of domestic and national projects.’’
Domestic textile machinery manufacturers introduced the projects they developed in cooperation with universities
In the opening panel of the two-day symposium, distinguished representatives of the textile industry shared their comments and opinions on the development of the Turkish Textile Machinery Industry. In the panel, concrete suggestions for moving forward in a common vision with the emphasis on inter-sectoral cooperation came to the fore.
At the symposium, which brought together the textile industry, academics and engineer students with the textile machinery industry; highly qualified presentations were made on current R&D activities in the textile machinery industry. In addition, the authorities of the machinery sector introduced their projects carried out in cooperation with universities. The following are among the companies that made presentations at the symposium; Özen Mensucat, Polteks, Özlü Mühendislik, Gümüş Enerji, Şampiyon Filtre, Optimum Digital Planet, Pro-SMH, Ağteks, Serkon, Elyaf Tekstil, Nit Örme, YGN Mekatronik, Dok-San, Baykan Denim, Argetek, Devsan, Sava Örme, Proses Mekatronik, Beneks, Almaxtex Tekstil, Polteks, Erka Mühendislik, Sistem Teknik, Tolkar Makine, Tachyon Makine, Vatek Çevre Teknolojileri, AES-Acar Endüstriyel Sistemler, IAS Bilgi İşlem ve Danışmanlık, Eliar Elektronik, Güncel Yazılım, and Özen Elektrostatik.
Certificates for R&D Engineer Training Program Participants
On the 2nd day of the symposium, the certificate ceremony of the 2nd ‘R&D Engineers Training Program in Textile’ was held under the moderation of Chamber of Textile Engineers Bursa Branch (TMMOB), with the support of Uludağ Textile Exporters’ Association (UTİB) and Uludağ Ready-to-Wear and Apparel Exporters’ Association (UHKİB). Delivering the opening speech of the ceremony, Pınar Taşdelen Engin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of UTİB, stated: ‘‘We are very proud to present our trainees with their certificates at a very important symposium for the textile industry. The intense application to our program made us very happy. The work we do is extremely valuable in terms of both responding to a great need in our sector and being promising for the future. An important difference this year was that not only textile engineers but also other field engineers working in R&D centers participated in the program.’’ The trainees who completed the program received their certificates with a ceremony.