Perhaps the best business stories during the COVID-19 pandemic are being written by companies in the medical, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries.
Perhaps the best business stories during the COVID-19 pandemic are being written by companies in the medical, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. Statistics also reveal that 47 percent of consumers in Turkey have cleaned their homes more, while 44 percent have done laundry more often during the pandemic. Personal cleaning trends also depict a similar picture. The use of detergents and wet wipes is increasing significantly in Turkey, as in the rest of the world.
Hayat Kimya Vice President of Operations İbrahim Güler stated that they expect a growth of 15 to 17 percent in the sector by the end of the year, and added: "This picture also imposes important responsibilities on us, the manufacturing companies." Indicating Hayat Kimya’s market leadership in the sanitary tissue category in the MENA Region, Güler underlined that the company made a difference with the hygienic masks it developed during the pandemic. Explaining that the mask project was implemented with the initiative of the employees who worked from home during the first days of the pandemic, Güler said, “When designing the masks, we have used the technological infrastructure we have developed for diapers since 2015 We wanted to come up with a reliable product in terms of protection and one with straps that do not hurt the ears. We have invested more than 100 million TRY, but we managed to develop a product that makes a difference. Our technology and R&D infrastructure is behind this achievement which was realized in such a short time”.
Mr. Güler emphasized that the Industry 4 approach has been effective in Hayat Kimya's production ecosystem for a long time and continued: “We can adapt this to our business models as hygiene 4.0. Hygiene 4 has always been there for us. We have improved ourselves even more in the pandemic. This gave us advantages both in production and in the field.”
According to the information shared by İbrahim Güler, more than 100 researchers in Hayat Kimya's R&D center carry out studies focused on alternative raw materials, packaging, and process development. Stating that they opened the doors of the laboratory to 18 doctoral students during their thesis period, within the scope of industry-university cooperation, Güler underlined that research for environmentally friendly production was also ongoing at the R&D center.
One of the subjects Güler trusts very much in his company is artificial intelligence systems. "I would like to proudly say that we are working on an artificial intelligence project that is being tried for the first time among major manufacturers around the world and that will make a lot of noise" said Güler and continued: “In the production of sanitary tissues, roll breakages and jam ups cause slowdown in production, thus loss of efficiency. We have developed a system to prevent breakages with an artificial intelligence project. We conducted more than 1,000 tests on a total of 10 billion data that we obtained during production. We achieved 81% accuracy in predicting breakages, and 99% accuracy in predictions about production without any breakage. This has gained us a great advantage during the pandemic.”
Güler's goal is now to extend the pilot project on artificial intelligence to the entire production operation. Saying, "Robots, virtual robots are now in our lives", Güler's plan now is to finalize the works about the learning machines. Accordingly, the machines will sense their own malfunctions and inform the system.
Güler stated that the speaking machines are already operational at Hayat Kimya and added, “Dozens of facilities in seven countries talk to each other, and the think tank in Istanbul watches these factories instantly. As a company working for public health within the scope of the Hygiene 4 approach, we are one of the first companies to receive the COVID-19 Safe Production Certificate. In addition, I can confirm that we have taken all our measures to even higher levels during this period.”
Güler underlined that the company designs its production processes in a way that will cause less harm to the planet. According to the information given by the Vice President who said, “We are the first in Turkey and the third in Europe in terms of less water consumption”, Hayat Kimya uses 3.5 to 4 tons of water for 1 ton of sanitary tissue, which is 4 times below the industry norms. Emphasizing that the demand for hygienic products has increased in the pandemic, Hayat Kimya Vice President of Operations İbrahim Güler said that they could predict 81% of the outage rate thanks to artificial intelligence and robotic systems and added: “The Hygiene 4 approach has created an advantage. The pilot application has been successful. Another indicator of our technology and R&D power is the new-generation masks”.
Hayat Kimya is a company with 33 years of experience in the industry. The company, which carries brands such as Molfix, Molped, Papia, Familia, Bingo, and Evony, has 21 production facilities in Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Russia, and Pakistan, and employs 8 thousand people. According to İbrahim Güler, “A year at Hayat is worth 5 normal years”. Mr. Güler says that with an extraordinary effort they have achieved the level reached by 100-year-old companies in 15 years, since 2005 The company, which had a turnover of 1.8 billion USD in 2019, has been growing in double digits for 10 years. İbrahim Güler pointed out that with the completion of the investments in Mersin and Russia, the 5-year investment amount will reach 2.1 billion TRY and said: “We have been growing in double digits for 10 years. We aim to reach a size of 3.5 billion USD in the next 15 years. For this, we focused on two continents: Africa and Central-South East Asia. We will open new facilities in these regions. We are planning for a minimum investment of 1 billion USD and an additional employment for 7 thousand people.”