Success Story of Silvan Sanayi A.Ş.-Dr. İlhami Pektaş
Silvan Sanayi, whose success story started as a small shop in Çağlayan/Istanbul in 1957, continues with its new generation factory established in Dilovası Industrial Zone in 2017 and offers products and services to the mining, energy, cement and transportation sectors. Having one of the two largest steel foundries within the country as a steel melting capacity and facility area, Silvan Sanayi is one of the two largest facilities in the world in the production of high-speed brake discs. The company exports 99% of its high quality and value-added products such as high-speed train brake discs, undercarriage parts of construction machines used in mines and giant mine crusher machine parts to Germany, the USA, France, India, Australia and the Middle Eastern countries.
SİLVAN Sanayi A.Ş. Board President Demir Mollaoğlu tells us the success story of the company since establishment by answering our questions.
When and by whom was SİLVAN SANAYİ A.Ş. founded?
One of the well-established foundry factories in Türkiye, our company was founded in 1957 in Çağlayan/Istanbul by my deceased uncle Sabahattin Mollaoğlu as a small factory.
Could you give information about the development process?
Later in 1962, a large investment was made in Cevizli neighbourhood of Kartal district in Istanbul, and with the death of my uncle in 1979, my father took over the management. The factory started activities with exports, and has grown with varied business. Since the factory founders had studied in Germany, they mainly traded with Germany at first, and they entered new areas by developing their business. The fact that they did all their work with their own know-how had been their biggest feature and had progressed in this way until 2007, when they transferred the management to the second generation.
Manufacturing steel casting parts for the cement production sector, our factory started to be renewed by installing new mixer and sand reclamation systems for high quality castings in 2007. In this way, our factory’s product range has been expanding since 2008 to include crusher, grinder mills and undercarriage parts. The factory has specialized in the production of alloy steel and manganese steel castings of various qualities that are heat and wear resistant. In 2013, Şekerpınar processing workshop investment was made. In 2017, the construction of a new factory in Dilovası was completed with state-of-the-art equipment. Our factory in Cevizli and processing workshop in Şekerpınar moved to our new factory in Dilovası in 2017.
With 65 years of accumulation, we built a factory of 60 thousand square meters in Dilovası district of Kocaeli, 34 thousand square meters of which consists of closed area. The facility in service here is among the world’s leading foundries in the modern sense.
What were the important strategies in the success steps?
In our previous place, we also used to apply new technologies, replacing old equipment to adapt these technologies, but this was not exactly what we wanted. Because our factory was old design, we were not able to do what we thought would be more effective and better. Therefore, moving from our old factory was actually an efficient investment and a technological innovation at the same time. While moving operations, we increased our capacity because if a company like Silvan Sanayi was making a new investment after 60 years, it should not be the same as the old one. Therefore, we evaluated the newly established factory as a technological development and capacity increase suitable for today’s conditions. In our new generation foundry, a system built entirely on artificial intelligence was designed with sensor technologies automatic mould lines.
Thanks to the transfer trolleys, which are used very little in the steel casting industry in the world, and the forklift-free factory design, it was planned to transfer the products from one hall to another one, even without using crane in some parts.
Silvan Sanayi Among the Leading High-Speed Brake Disc Manufacturers
What products do you manufacture?
Since our establishment, our production range has changed a lot, since we are talking about competitive conditions and more than half a century of history, of course, there is no way to say that what you are doing and earning income from is the same as what you did 60 years ago. Therefore, in 60 years, we have undergone a transformation, that is, we have gradually lost our old products and headed to the products with higher added value and harder specifications, thus started to produce heat and wear resistant steel castings such as machine parts in the crusher industry of mines, high-speed train brake discs, construction machinery undercarriage parts and excavator tips and grinding mill parts. We are currently working with the most important companies in the world in these fields.
For example, we have been exporting high-speed brake discs to Knorr-Bremse since 2012 and we received the most successful supplier award in 2016.
In addition, we manufacture undercarriage sets and digging tips for construction machinery weighing 13,000 tons, which serves open coal mines for another company in Germany. We cast the platforms and spheres for the lime and coal grinding mills. The companies which are manufacturing of open mining and mineral process equipment, are also among our important customers.
Our products;
- High-speed train brake discs
In cooperation with the German Knorr-Bremse AG, which is the world leader in its position, high-speed train brake discs are produced for the railways of various countries. To date, 77,000 brake discs have been delivered and Silvan has also been certified by the rail authorities DB (Germany), Shinkansen (Japan), Bombardier (Canada), TGV France, Trenitalia (Italy) and the China State Railways.
- Machine parts for giant mine crusher machines
The most outstanding customers are coming from Denmark, USA and Finland. These are the companies that establish factories and prefer our company in machine parts.
- Mining machinery undercarriage parts
We produce complete undercarriage parts of large mining machines, where high-strength steels must be used. One of our outstanding customer in this field is from Germany.
- Energy
We produce various steel casting parts used in energy generation. Our outstanding customers from Germany and USA prefer our company for these machine parts.
Could you give information about your new project and investments?
Thanks to our $70 million facility investment, our foundry is one of the largest foundries within the country as a steel melting capacity and facility area. In the production of high-speed train brake discs, we are one of the two largest facilities in the world. With the capacity to melt and cast 50 tons of steel at a time, we can produce the steel parts with the most strict specifications in the world. Our investments will continue within our company, whose 34,000 square meters on a total area of 60,000 square meters has a closed area, 10,000 square meters of which can be closed, and is suitable for further expansion with an additional area of 20,000 square meters.
We cast large parts in our new facilities, and have signed an agreement for the sandblasting process with Rösler Group, the world leader in the surface treatment sector. Here, we clean the surfaces of the heavy industrial parts we cast and prepare them for surface treatment processes such as painting and coating.
Which countries do you export to? What is your export target for 2023 and 2024?
We export 99% of our production to all the world countries, mainly America, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Japan, China, Canada, South Africa and Singapore. We currently have an annual shipping capacity of 6,000 tons and our export is worth $35 million. For the future, we aim to produce 8 to 10 thousand tons of castings on an annual basis and $50 million in annual turnover.
What are your predictions and goals?
Our upcoming goals include filling our factory with more production and exports. We work 99% for export, and we have an existing customer portfolio. We can now meet the demands of our existing customer portfolios in terms of size and product that we did not use to meet. And now that we have a new factory, the likes of our visitors make it easier for us to find new customers. We will find new customers and increase our portfolio along with our current customers.
What is your advice to young people, entrepreneurs and industrialists?
For the youth; don’t give up, never be afraid to make mistakes, see it as an opportunity, it improves you, there is no easy way to succeed, never forget that, the only way is to work hard, try, you will see that you will, don’t let a chef you don’t get along with or a wrong job choice stop you from doing what you want to do in your career, try to turn unpleasant events to your advantage, everything in business life will not always go as you want, that’s for sure, if you are ready for this, it will make you better adapt to business life as a thought. Be loyal to your company, work with dedication as your own business, the company will see it.
For the entrepreneurs and industrialists; you are the real heroes of this country, such beautiful investments are made that we are watching with envy and admiration both in our sector and in other sectors. The only thing I will tell in this regard is to do whatever you do, do different things, turn to the areas that everyone does not do, where they really need. Sometimes, popularity in some areas appears and then huge investments are left to die. It is national wealth. Some investments would lead to more advanced investments if they were appropriate. New projects and new areas should be created, and I believe that only the entrepreneurs can evaluate and do this.
What is the secret of your success?
Success is not guaranteed forever. You fall, you get up, you can go through the same thing over and over again. The careers of the world’s most successful businessmen, athletes and artists are full of failures. The common feature is that they learn from the failures and find better, the only thing you should not do in case of failure is to be against yourself and the work you do. Do not fall into this spiral, every fall is an experience, some of them are more effective than education. There have been many issues that I have failed, I have made wrong decisions. I did not compromise on quality, I always tried to get into different jobs, maybe if I tried easy, I would not be able to taste the failures on the road and I would not know that feeling.
If we always remember that success is not a permanent but an everchanging element, I think we will work harder to keep it in our hands.