“Our Energy Saving Products that We will Launch In 2024 will be in Great Demand”

Interview: Dilek Hayırlı

Recep Yılmaz, Founder and Company Owner of TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri R&D Engineering Department said: “We anticipate that our new patented products that will increase personnel productivity, offer energy savings and ensure plant-machine safety, which we will launch in 2024, will be in great demand. We will exhibit our innovations, which will be the first in the sector, at ITM 2024.”

TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri, an entrepreneurship company, started its activities in Erciyes Technopark in 2011 in line with the implementation of the initiative project that was found worthy of support within the scope of the Techno-Entrepreneurship Capital Support programme coordinated by the Ministry of Industry and Technology.

At the time of the company’s establishment, the product range mainly consisted of modification systems for ring spinning machines. Today, the company offers its customers auxiliary and protective machines and systems in almost every step of the short fibre spinning mill, especially the metal trap product group. The company carries out its production in 4 different production units in Kayseri.

We interviewed with Recep Yılmaz, Founder and Company Owner of TTE Textile Technologies R&D Engineering Department, for the special issue of ‘Turkish Textile Machinery Industry’. Yılmaz evaluated the company’s establishment story, export markets, sustainable, environmentally friendly products and the year 2024.

“We Export to More Than 10 Countries”

Can you give information about your export markets and international organisation? Which countries do you export to? What kind of studies do you carry out to increase your export markets?

TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri realised its first export to Turkmenistan in 2013. Today, we continue our exports to more than 10 countries, especially Switzerland, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Brazil. We have direct sales offices in some of the countries we export to in high volumes. In some of them, we carry out our marketing and sales activities through agencies. Especially the country textile machinery fairs organised in certain periods in our export markets have always been the main elements that have taken our sales figures one step further.

What kind of changes have recently occurred in the demands of textile machinery users? How do you respond to these demands as TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri?

Periodic differentiation can be clearly distinguished as pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. In our country and the world textile market, there was an accelerated investment process after the pandemic. In this process, we have seen two main demands from our customers. The first of these is the demand for fast product supply, which we tried to respond by increasing our production capacity. The second and more important one is the demand for products that will reduce the demand for human labour force and enable the existing personnel to work more efficiently due to the inability of the spinning mills to find enough personnel according to their increasing capacities. Based on these demands, new product groups have been introduced to the market, especially since 2021, and these have attracted great interest from the sector.

“Metal Trap Systems has ‘Non-Energy Consuming Product’ Label”

Considering that there is an energy crisis and water scarcity is not far away, what kind of measures do you take for environmentally friendly and sustainable production? How environmentally friendly and sustainable are your products?

At this point, we would like to give an example of our patented metal trap systems, one of our main product groups. Our MTT series metal trap products have been labelled with the “energy consumption free product” logo since 2012 when they were put into production. The annual energy consumption of competitor machines with less than half the capacity of our MTT series machines is over 50,000kW. In addition to the environmental benefit provided by these machines, which operate in thousands worldwide, we continue our respect for the environment with our waste controls and internal recycling processes in our production units.

On the other hand, as an indispensable part of cotton recycling lines, which is one of the most important environmental approach issues in the sector today, our machines successfully fulfil their duties without consuming energy.

Digitalisation is essential for the future of a sustainable industry. What are your digitalised solutions as a company? Can you tell us about the advantages these products provide to users?

TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri has started to offer its product groups containing high technology and digitalisation such as AGV (Unmanned Transport Vehicle), which it has offered to different sectors in previous years, to the textile sector in recent years. This situation shows that; businesses have the desire to follow and control the work carried out as a black order in old terms at every step and they want to realise this without leaving it to personal preferences. The main advantages that our digitalised product groups provide to our customers can be listed as operational efficiency, ability to be analysed, sustainability and independent performance measurements.

“We Offer Updates in Machines to Our Old Customers Free of Charge”

What do you offer to your customers as TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri in terms of after-sales services and what kind of feedback do you get from your customers at this point?

Most of our product groups are user-friendly in commissioning, use and maintenance phases. I can say that; most of our products sold can be installed and commissioned by our customers. Externally, we provide 24/7 service for all support, maintenance, repair and spare parts requests. As a company, our main approach here is that we are aware that all machines and systems sold belong to TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri throughout their lifetime. When a version change is made in our products that will benefit the user, we offer this service free of charge to old products in line with customer approval. As we are an R&D Innovation based company rather than a conventional machine manufacturer company, we are aware that all kinds of feedback from our customers takes us and our products one step further. This awareness opens the doors for us to be a business partner with hundreds of happy customers.

“We will Complete the Year 2023 with Figures Above Our Expectations”

How was 2023 for your company? Can you evaluate your machine sales and export figures?

The earthquake disaster that took place in Kahramanmaraş, one of the important yarn production base cities of our country, in February made us all very sad. The city of Kayseri, where our company carries out its activities, was also seriously affected by these earthquakes. Apart from the physical impact on our production units, our employees were psychologically affected. However, after a while, with the awareness that we need to work harder on behalf of our country, we increased our production numbers day by day and approached the target figures. On the other hand, although our country has been negatively affected by the slowdown in the textile sector in recent months, customers have made new restructurings in line with the situation and conditions, and this has enabled sales figures to exceed our targets, especially in product groups that will increase personnel efficiency. When we consider our international sales together, we will complete 2023 with figures above our expectations.

As TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri, what are your expectations and goals for 2024? Will you have new product and investment efforts in the near future?

It is predicted by economic circles that the difficult period for our domestic customers will continue in the first quarter of 2024. In the initial period; We plan to spend the slow season efficiently by carrying out the production of orders received from 2023 and focusing on foreign markets.

Slowing periods for the textile industry create opportunities for innovation, development and new searches for all industry stakeholders. We predict that our new patented products, which we will introduce to the market in 2024, will increase personnel efficiency, provide energy savings and ensure facility and machine safety, and will receive great demand.

“We Will Exhibit Our Industry-First Innovations at ITM 2024”

As you know, it will be held at ITM 2024 in 2024. What kind of preparations are you making for the exhibition? What can you say about what ITM 2024 brought to the textile machinery industry?

As TTE Tekstil Teknolojileri, we will attend the ITM exhibition for the first time. Our main expectation and goal at the exhibition is to meet industry representatives that we have not had the opportunity to meet before and to introduce ourselves. Along with our popular products in the exhibition area, we will especially exhibit our innovations that will be the first in the industry. We have focused on our preparations to quickly respond to the demands we will receive during the exhibition by making our innovations ready for mass production.

I say this because I have attended all ITMs since the year I earned the title of textile engineer, ITM exhibitions are indispensable for companies to discover their potential and to showcase their potential to the sector. I think that the magnificent environment in ITM 2022 in terms of participants, visitors and productivity will increase even more and ITM 2024 will take place.