Innovation, exports and a strong domestic market are all contributing to a burgeoning market in Turkey. Daniel Searle reports.

For Turkish manufacturers of hoists and motors, business is very good—both in the huge domestic market, and in the export markets surrounding the country and further afield. One of the drivers behind the strong market in Turkey is the level of innovation creating new products and improving the performance of existing technology.

Güralp, a manufacturer of lifting equipment including overhead travelling cranes, gantry cranes, jib cranes and transfer trolleys, recently launched its new GA monorail hoists series. The series offers a range of advantages over its predecessor, including increased lifting and travel speeds; more duty cycle options; ergonomic and light-weight design, improved headroom to maximise lifting height; and a maintenance-friendly direct drive cross travel mechanism, as opposed to a pinion drive.

Also recently added to the company’s portfolio is a series of scissor clamps for lifting marble and concrete slabs, with different variations for lifting a range of weights. Innovations such as the GA range and the scissor clamps are driven by the company’s research and development centre, the first accredited centre of its type in the Turkish crane industry, says Güralp. Since it was founded, the R&D centre has worked with various projects, and as a result of its work was last year awarded the title of an accredited R&D centre by the Turkey Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology.

“We had benefits of our investment to R&D projects with innovative point of view and vision that aim always keeps improving and sustainable success,” says the company’s chairman of the board. “Our research and development activities will increasingly continue in the following process with support of Turkey Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology.”

The company mainly exports to European countries, as well as Canada and South Africa. The GA monorail hoist series will be showcased at the CeMat exhibition this month in Hannover, Germany, amongst other products from Güralp.

And after a customer’s facility for producing components of heavy-duty wind turbines received a five-unit order of 120t cranes, the customer’s products are now being used in Germany and Denmark.

BVS Cranes, with a team of around 400 employees, manufactures cranes that are used in the public and private sectors, in Turkey and abroad.

The company manufactures crane and hoist products including standard wireroped hoists; overhead travelling cranes; gantry cranes; jib cranes; heavy-duty and high-capacity process cranes; speciallydesigned and custom cranes; and sectorbased transportation and lifting machines and equipment, such as harbour cranes, ship loader-unloaders, mobile ship loaders, and so forth.

The company currently supplies around 40% of its annual production to markets outside of Turkey, and is enjoying a strong performance in its domestic market too.

“BVS Cranes is the pioneer crane manufacturer in the domestic market in Turkey,” says Buket Aybasti, foreign trade and overseas sales specialist at BVS Cranes. “Because of the global crisis and the exchange rate fluctuation, lots of the companies had some challenges in 2017, but for BVS Cranes it was a very good year and we sold more than our 2017 target. In total, over than 800 units different type of cranes were sold and exported both to the domestic and foreign markets. 60% of these 800 units were for the domestic market.

“BVS Cranes has been exporting to more than 60 countries in four continents since 1985 from USA to Turkish-speaking countries in Central Asia]. Recently, we’ve mostly been exporting to Europe and the Middle East. 40% of our annual production is for foreign market.”

The company supplies a range of end-use sectors, and focuses on innovation. “Generally in recent years most of BVS Cranes’ projects were for the steel and iron industry, but at the same time we are manufacturing for driving markets as underground and highway construction projects, the energy sector for electric and natural gas power plants, and shipyards,” says Aybasti.

“As BVS Cranes, we are always following the latest technology for manufacturing our cranes. To exist for a long time in the market you should use the latest technology. “Our R&D department is working on new design of the standard hoisting units. The design is done with the help of some software and finally tested with finite element analysis software. Now the prototypes have been manufactured and physical tests are going on. “And also at the same time we are making upgrades on the existing equipments.”

Last year saw BVS Cranes produce innovative machines for the ports sector. “In 2017 BVS Cranes designed and manufactured a special shiploader project for loading soda ash for the ships. With a 1,500t per hour capacity it was the biggest capacity shiploader manufactured in Turkey. BVS Cranes also designed and manufactured a 300t per hour capacity mobile shiploader for working together with the main shiploader. All manufacturing, installation, tests and commissioning were conducted by BVS Cranes. For this project, all the conveyors and silos were manufactured by our steel construction company BCES. “This year, we are currently following some underground projects, highway projects and harbour projects in different areas in the world.”

The Turkey market represents 65% of our sales for hoist drives,” says export manager Haffar Salim. “We are supporting the Turkish hoist sector with tailored solutions for the industry leaders and technical support to small-mid-sized companies.

“Most of our products are actually destined to export. Products sold to Turkish manufacturers are in most cases exported. At the same time we are supply 35% of our gearboxes to companies based in more than 20 different countries.

Innovation, exports and a strong domestic market are all contributing to a burgeoning market in Turkey