Mr. Onur Karacam: "We must be more conscious and educated about plastic usage and recycling"

KUZEY GLOBAL, is one of the fast-growing and leader thermoforming machinery manufacturers in Turkey. At the Plasteurasia 2019, we had a chance to interview Mr. Onur Karacam, Sales Manager of the company. KUZEY GLOBAL has started its operations as a mold making company in the late 1970s as a first mold manufacturing workshop in Turkey. Starting from 1995, the company started to manufacture thermoforming machines and has renewed its branding strategy and the company name to the current one. 

Currently, the company is able to manufacture the complete line from sheet extruders, thermoforming machines, and the integrated offset printing machines attached just after the thermoforming machines. The printing part is the first and only integration so far in Turkey for this type of machine, and the company already applied for the patent, Mr. Karacam stated.

KUZEY GLOBAL has about 30% market share in Turkey and mostly focuses on global markets by engaging 45 companies from 23 countries around the world. Especially Asia is one of the important markets for the company, for instance, 25 machines recently sold to Indonesia. Mr. Karacam says, "the customers from abroad trust the company’s innovation and quality. The only problem for global markets is physical distances."

According to Mr. Karacam, the key factors make the company different are experience, know-how, R&D investments, and initially curiosity. Because curiosity brings with passion for better market research for the changing environment, a better understanding of customer demands, and finally with the R&D support the company maintains the current position of the market. Comparing with the global markets,  Mr. Karacam positions his company and the Turkish market between Europe and Asian markets, close to Europe in terms of price and quality balance.

Mr. Karacam says, "current trends are plastic reduction and focusing on environmentally friendly materials usage." They have several ongoing research to adapt the machines for those materials such as the speed of the machine, tensile of the machine, material amount adjustment, heat to be applied, and so on. He also states that while focusing on the trends and new technologies in the industry, companies must be conscious to compare pros and cons of the new technologies and determine to imply either new or current technology in terms of efficiency, competition, and environmental concerns.

 

When we asked about his opinion, Mr. Karacam mentioned that to protect the environment, "the human factor is more crucial than the plastic itself. Because even if we have more environmentally friendly materials, usage and recycling of them still depend on the human being. In that case, we must be more conscious and educated about plastic usage and recycling. On the other hand, R&D is also crucial to the machine manufacturers’ side, for instance, the company currently researching how to adapt their molds and using PLA in thermoforming machines".

Turkish domestic market is not doing well currently, Mr. Karacam says. However, the exporters keep the economy stands. In this case, there is government supports for the exporter companies. As long as there is support, and exporters keep operating the future of the market would be better. On the other hand, K 2019 trade fair just held in October 2019 has a big effect on the decrease in the number of visitors to Plasteurasia 2019 he thinks. But eventually, he is satisfied with the customers visited their booth.

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