An enjoying conversation with Mr. Suat from Fokus Kalite.

We are with Mr. Suat Karadayı who is the owner of Fokus Kalite established in Mersin, 2010 to provide nondestructive testing service, carrying its headquarters to Istanbul 2012 after completing various projects in and around Mersin, and providing services to leading companies in fields of Project administration and quality control, source engineering in addition to NDT service. We are having a conversation with him about his company, strategy and future of the sector. We are first asking him the Fokus Kalite.

• As Fokus Kalite in which about forty five people works, we provide services in Ataşehir. We have “portable” heat treatment devices which may perform local heating rather than “fixed” heat treatment ovens. We do pre-welding pre-heating, post-welding stress relieving and normalization heat treatment if needed for materials with some alloy or carbon steel and which require heat treatment. We relieve the stress in materials with heat treatment and improve their mechanic specifications. Then, we prepare a detailed report and deliver it to our customers. We are providing service in the construction of Star refinery in İzmir with a team consisting of 12 people and 10 heat treatment machines.
• We established a part of the building where our office in Ferhatpaşa is located as destructive test laboratory. In this laboratory, we can control chemical and technical properties of the materials.
• We perform tension, bending, hardness, dent strike, breaking and chemical analysis tests and report them to the customer.

Mr. Suat, do we understand correctly? In your laboratory, you are in progress of developing about the needs of the industry, you are reaching out new findings. On the other hand, do you provide a “mobile” service actually?

• About ndt and heat treatment, yes.
• But, about destructive tests, no.

Can you explain this mobile service in detail?

• Of course. While establishing the laboratory, our aim was to get over current difficulty in the market. Namely, many countries make various requests; however companies referred to as leader of the industry give results after 1 month. You send a part, then have to wait for one month. We established this laboratory based on problems we faced before. To explain it with an example, a company orders St52 material, they send St37. Company wants to control this and has to wait for one month, what is the most important is manufacturing must be continued, so it may cause to business loss. At this point, as of the moment when we receive the part, there is a part preparation time and we prepare the part in a standard manner and may provide a result information immediately. We direct the owner of the part to the right way. For example, we say “This material is improper.” Because these feedbacks not including speed and clearness cause the manufacturer makes loss from a final product due to the fact that manufacturing is in progress. We experienced them all, customer finishes the product and learns that material used is not proper. Labor and money are wasted. Or, an exorbitant error to plot against many people’s lives arises, we as Fokus Kalite aim to prevent this.

Well, what kind of reactions do you receive from your customers receiving the service which you call laboratory activities?

• We receive really good reactions. We already provide services to big certain independent companies which provide surveillance service. When we start the work, there is a method called “resource procedure”. When you start the project, you take materials, electrodes and a demo part consisting of a welder. You use the electrode and material you will use from the one-to-one project. You do the welding, and perform tests. You check durability, toughness and hardness, we can check very fine materials we call as micro hardness. As a result of these tests, we submit our detailed report, then manufacturer decides whether the resource procedure of the report is true and will continue the business. We performed numerous tests in Star Refinery.

Can we say that the more tests, the most correct results?

• Actually, to give an example from another industry; some tankers such as LPG tankers are manufactured... They request samples from each metal place in the abroad. There is a thing called replicate sample; customers says that take a part from a material you use for tanker, have it tested and send me the report. It reviews the tanker, otherwise does not buy it. Unfortunately, this system is not available in Turkey. Some may desire, but it is not popular.

Can we say that companies desiring to work with methods are satisfied with this service?

• As a consequence, customer wants to get its money’s worth without any deficiency. To simply say, what makes you feel to see a different engine when you buy a BMW and open the hood, this is such an issue. A mechanism is necessary to control this situation, and we stop at this point exactly. We believe that it is required to sustain this in the best way, otherwise you become an unreliable company.

Mr. Suat, I want to ask you about MISAD. We want to learn about your acquaintance with the association and your point of view to activities of the association.

• I think it is an organization established with a very logic attempt. Even if I have difficulty in attending the organizations, I follow what is done. For example, I congratulate the association for the new industry booklet newly issued. The industry is defined with the booklet.

According to you opinion, what kind of an importance does Misad have?

• Members of Misad, companies consisting the Misad and authorities actually undertake a highly important responsibility of the country. They undertake responsibility at a critical point of the country. For example, there are companies appearing in defense industry predominantly. This is a quite different dimension, I appreciate Misad in terms of a being a platform in which different companies serving for a blessed area can stand together..

Mr. Suat, what kind of a service do you provide to the producer members in Misad, or the members which produce connection elements for continuous ovens or vacuuming molds in vacuum ovens?

• We can perform crack tests to any parts subject or not subject to heat treatment. Some materials may be damaged after heat treatment. Each material does not act normally. Some customers may request to perform tests after heat treatment. We perform magnetic test we call crack test, and radyographic test and ultrasonic tests from time to time. We can also perform other tests such as hardness, durability and toughness in laboratory environment. We strengthen our hands for the next move of our customer.

There are laboratory materials, monitoring tests in many places addressing to the heat treatment industry. There are certain main machinery. Is there any test or process that you only have and perform?

• Not for the laboratory part, but I can say that we are separated at control point before entering the materials into the laboratory. It means that we become a third eye. Instead of the sentence “I manufactured and tested the material”, we want to provide service as an independent and objective organization.

Do you have any connection with international audit companies?

• There is no direct connection. Because we do the same job. We are almost in the same league. They are big-scale and internationally supported, we are relatively small-scale Turkish Company, but we do our jobs well. Our basis point is this. At this point, our works with Turkish Accreditation Institution are in progress. We are at the stage of application. We are about to receive 17020 document. This certificate proves 100% accuracy of your laboratory tests. This is a process, it does not depend us completely, because this is kind of a process extending systematically even if our preparations are completed. There are 10 companies granted to this certificate. We are aware of that, in contact with Turkish Accreditation Institution. We have started our preparations for 17025 accreditation documents for the laboratory.

What we understand; you have support in addition to production and an equipped structure at the point of providing standards. Do we use the true words if we say this?

• Yes. We have a structure detecting the problems and fulfilling them. We are staying the course of being a company which can provide the service provided by international audit companies universally here, meet needs with equipped laboratories.

Namely, will you shoulder responsibility by moving beyond the term “I produced, I sold”?

• Yes To give an interesting example for this matter. I worked in a French company in Mersin for 5.5 years. Imagine a tank, it is in 100 meter diameter; I sign its doneness and it is available for service. Imagine it is filled with petrol, it leaked, cracked, the product flew. The tank is surrounded by a set, by the way. Company can invoice you the whole product. It says “I told you to control it”. So, there is a big responsibility. If a faulty part was sent to us for 4 times, we would issue fault report for 4 times. One requested to issue problem-free report for the 4th time. We did not accept and lost customer. We as Fokus Kalite want to do our business properly and do not care such losses.