İlker TAN
Director General
Martin Engineering
Martin Engineering, continuing its activities more than 19 countries in six continents, provided innovative solutions to numerous sectors with its services and products. Would you please tell us of the establishment of the company and its overall fields of activities?
Martin Engineering is a global trademark with 76 years of experience, an international leader developer, producer, and supplier of the innovations that make transport of bulk materials much cleaner, safer, and more productive.
Our company is an important world trademark with high recognition in the sector and providing highly safe work environments and technologies allowing higher profitability. We provide such specific solutions in our activities that accelerate flow of bulk materials in cyclones or bunkers, minimizing dust and fallouts of materials on conveyor belts, prolonging components of conveyors, and minimizing and improving downtimes in facilities.
Martin Engineering’s headquarter is in the United States of America. About 35 years after our establishment in 1944, our operations had started firstly in South Africa. Before ending of 1980s, we reached to four continents by becoming operational in Mexico, Germany, and Brazil. As of 2020, we have been in service also in Turkey with unique approaches opening new doors from a past of 15 years to the future.
Martin, as the regions of its services increased, started designing new and innovative products in order for making bulk material processing much safer, cleaner, and more profitable. Meantime, it continued to discover new opportunities. Today, Martin Engineering serves to various heavy industries, particularly cement and mining, with its high commitment and mission responsibility through its facilities in 19 countries on six continents. It continues to produce innovative solutions for the problems the sectors encounter with the bulk materials. It is a trademark deserving the title “world leader” properly.
Martin Engineering engages rather active and important operations in Turkey. How is the company’s organization and are its operations in Turkey?
The geography to where its Turkish branch established in Istanbul Anatolian side in 2005 is presently not limited to Turkey. With our Turkish staff which I manage, we serve to directly to the countries in close geography, including Egypt, Azerbaijan, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
The base of our perspective when producing solutions for problems comprises of four interlocked foci, which are safety, efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Every product and solution we sell in such perspective aim to protect workers from all kinds of occupational accidents and industrial diseases, and eliminate any futile actions and energy uses in plants. They must enable to move more bulk material as much as possible in any given time, and maximize revenues to bound rate while minimizing costs. In our organization in Turkey, we have all the supply chain and organizational structure any plant would need in order for realization of such unique modern approach smoothly.
You provide services to various sectors with numerous different products. What are your outstanding groups of products / services?
Martin Engineering serves to several different industries besides cement factories, from aggregate facilities to mines, coalfueled thermal power plant to foundry, iron and steel factories, from sugar factories to recycling facilities, and fertilizer, grain, and glass factories. The expertise of Martin in all such enterprises is to make bulk material processing much safer, cleaner, and more efficient. Air cannons, conveyor scrapers, and conveyor transfer point products produced for making the most of conveyor systems and pyro process in the cement industry provide solutions to various kinds of problems that the cement sector encounter every day, by means of knowledge and experience of Martin’s engineers and technicians of about 80 years.
Turkish cement sector has infrastructure, capacity, production, and sales, which compete with the world. Would you give us an overall evaluation of the sector?
Turkish cement sector is one of our sectors in which our specific gravity is globally rather high in terms of production capacities, production costs, infrastructure, knowledge, and utilization of technology. In very near future, utilization of manpower in more productive areas will increase when modern industrial technologies will become much more popular. This will allow much higher productive work, and take the Turkish cement industry to much powerful position in the world markets. I believe this wholeheartedly.”
How would you evaluate the general position of our cement sector in comparison to the world?
Despite all the difficulties caused by the political an economical factors in the geography where Turkey is, it is important to recognize and appreciate our cement sector in terms of production costs and environmental awareness. At the same time, I observe that the sector has advanced to a level of proudness, and that there is a managerial comprehension for maintaining it. It is a source of pride for me as well as for any Turk that Turkish cement producers are now not just local, but in the global markets.
Martin Engineering is a company distinguished with its R&D investments as well. How is your organization in this area?
Even at the onset of the company’s establishment, there is a story of invention. As the heirs of a culture breaking many grounds in the past 76 years, each Martin employee from the lowest to highest rank takes the mission of differentiating every new day from the previous one, and enjoys doing that.
Beyond any product or service, our ability for comprehend the essential needs of our customers, great vision and global leadership of the company ensure creation of innovative products. All our works are created as a natural outcome of high moral, devotion to codes of conducts, and humanistic culture that all our customers observe in us.
Is there any difference in your policies than other countries during the Covid-19 pandemics? How would you evaluate this period for your company?
Although we are in different geographies, and have different life styles, we face to a pandemic changing the world conditions completely from what humanity is used to. As long as we are able to act together only with common sense, I believe that we can overcome this virus and its impact on our lives. This is a solution sounding very simple, but also so much challenging to apply. However, I think that people now at least accepted the necessity to adapt themselves to the new conditions for learning to live with this virus for a long time.
I believe that such new conditions completely changing supply chains, substitute service and products, purchasing powers of customers, domestic and foreign competition dynamics will compel the business world in three stages. Firstly, players of business world will try to survive in a period of months. Any enterprise passing this period will go through a recovery in the next stage, and if accomplished that stage successfully, put their growth plans into practice.
As Martin Engineering, I must express my happiness and pride for having taken critical measures on time both sides of surviving against virus and commercial circumstances, and carried this period to the recovery stage very successfully.
The recovery period is based on three very important essentials; our knowledge of solving problematic issues of our customers, our skill of serving our customers ensuring trust, and our discipline with the perspective of seeking and implementing exact information and constant improvement.
Therefore, we have spent late months for comprehensive and versatile trainings working for strengthening three essentials.
However, the pandemic has economic and socio-cultural impacts on the industries we serve. It is not clear how great such impacts will be, how to affect us, or how long will last. Therefore, thinking that we are on route from survival to recovery period, we prefer not to complain, but to continue our works with the highest motivation possible.
Although this is the period of survival and recovery, we never gave up from our long-term growth plans. I also believe that toward the end of this year, our new technologies providing precise and unique solution for one of the common bottlenecks of all the sectors we serve to, including the cement sector will create a great positive impact. This will be such a technology enabling people to produce much safer and efficient outcome, but not introduced ever yet, where the imagination and reality meet.
It is a fact that we have to work harder since any measures to be taken and any actions to be applied when passing from the period of survival to the period of recovery and growth will take place in a work environment where we are less productive. Particularly, this is more critical in coming months. The future looks hazy, but the great test for overcoming this uncertainty will be passed only by people acting together. As Martin Engineering, we do, and will continue doing, the requirements of our great responsibility to the sector in order for coming through this period of struggle up to date and from now on, not only for our own existence, but also for our customers and suppliers.
Martin Engineering operates under a unique company culture. What is the most important factor in your successes?
We believe that we have a very important responsibility of aiming the perfection for welfare of individuals and development of society at the center of Martin Engineering’s values. We live each day on route to the future with such awareness. Motivations of each individual of the Martin family energizes outside with a good communication and strong interaction. The structure of our company culture consists of exactly on such principles.
İlker Tan is an executive, who added value to this sector for years as director, and brought innovations therein with his managerial approach. Continuity is very valuable in the business world as is in every field and sector. Since the establishment of Martin Engineering Turkey up to date, you were always there. Would you please tell us a little about that progress?
I was born in Ankara on 30 November 1975.All my educational life was in Ankara. I am a graduate of Hacettepe University, Department of Mining Engineering. I started working at private sector in 1996 during my university years, and continued as an engineer afterwards as representative of foreign companies operating in such sectors related to my profession. In 2005, I hold various positions in operations of a French cement group, such as raw material quarries, mining law, and exploitation licenses. Since 2006, I take important roles – in my opinion, even though it may be small for humanity – in the establishment, decision-making, and organization of Martin Engineering in Turkey for which I had held the representative position in Turkey previously in 2003 and 2004. Since 2010, I am the Director General of Martin Engineering Turkish branch. Additionally, I also hold the post of Business Development Regional Directorate of the flow helper products known as air cannon, one of the two main product groups, conveyor products and flow helpers of the company in the EMEAI region, covering Europe, Middle East, African countries, Russia, and India.
Playing the leading role in a region comprising many countries of different languages, religions, and cultures and handling any specific issue in differentiated manners, I suppose, is one of the factors motivating me at most. Still, there are instances of heavy stress now and the. However, I control such stress by means of sports activities in my private times. I am able to make my life balance to positive by swimming and various water sports during summer times and skiing in winters. Sports has such a value for me that I cannot give up, compensating and supporting my
psychology after very busy times in my work life, besides producing endorphin
and serotonin.
Apart from that, I love animals, particularly dogs. I have two dogs, one is a Labrador Retriever named “Ashley” and the other Kangal Anatolian Sheepdog named “Aiza”.
The times I spent with them are the most special and valuable times I spare for myself.
I consider myself as a perfectionist leader. During all my life, I have worked relentlessly for what I believe to be right, and will continue doing that. I noticed that most of my successes are outcomes of this perspective.
I am among those who believe that life is meaningless without worrying for some issues and being in a struggle of producing solutions therefor.