SleepTech Magazine Mattress, Accessories, Machinery, Raw Materials
Building a new production facility of 200 thousand sqm by investing 50 million dollars in Incesu, Kayseri, Form Sünger (Form Foam Company) aims to increase its capacity by 60%.
One of the largest foam suppliers to the bed industry, Form Sünger increases its production volume by investing 50 million dollars. Having 80 customers in 30 countries, aims to double its exports this year.Mehmet Ali Yoruk, general manager, informed about foam production industry.
On recent developments in the industry and his companies position Lately, we have realized a real growth by hitting our targets. Thanks to the recent fluctuations in currency rates the growth was more than the nominal. Bed industry in Turkey has an average growth about 6 to 7%. For 8 years we, as Form foam, are the leader in the industry among 20 companies in the sector. Our market share in total market is about 27%. We have completed construction works of our new factory in Incesu, that has 42 thousand sqm of covered area on 200 thousand sqm land. It cost 50 million dollars and increases our capacity by 60 %.
240 million sales in 2014 Our sales volume in 2014 was totaled to 240 million. We want to go up, thanks to the export department that was founded in 2013. Presently we have about 80 customers in 33 countries, whose share was 10 % of our production.
We want to double up our exports, which is about 5 million dollars this year.
On Turkey’s position in the usage ratio of foam beds compared to other countries
In Europe, more than half of the beds are foam type of mattresses. In 2006 we started to produce visco products. Our country is in the similar position as Portugal and Greece. In south European region foam beds account about 35 %, unfortunately in Turkey it is still below 10 %. We work hard with our sister company Istikbal to increase the share of foam. It slowly goes up.
The usage of foam mattresses will be doubled.
In line with the rising welfare standards, the usage of foam mattresses is increased in the North and the Central Europe in particular. Our growth potential in Turkey could be compared to that of South Europe.
We estimate that foam mattresses usage in Turkey will reach at 35 percent from the current 10 percent, that is, the usage of foam mattresses will be doubled. About 30-35 years ago, foam mattresses were used but they become deformed due to their low quality materials. So, the demand shifted to inner spring mattresses.
Nevertheless, they turned out to be uncomfortable. When it comes to today’s foam mattresses, they offer variety of comfort options. For his reason, we put emphasis on R&D, such as the utilization of visco elastic materials.
Visco-elastic materials turned out to be healthy and human friendly particularly for bed-ridden patients. Our clinical studies reveal the fact that visco materials have been instrumental to cure the resultant bedsores of the patients. ViscoForm was especially developed for use on mattresses, pillows to improve sleep quality and help you fall asleep sooner with less tossing and turning in bed. The pressure relieving material of Visco- Form is a sound solution to relieve mattress related sleep problems, and helps in the treatment of conditions attributed to diminishing the quality of life like lower back hernia, rheumatism, neck and back pains.
Could you further elaborate on your R&D activities?
By means of PCM (Phase Changing Materials), we are able to upgrade the cooling comfort and usage of foam mattresses to a great extent. As for the anti bacterial materials, we conducted a series of technical studies on anti bacterial materials by cooperating with Sabancı University, thereby producing anti bacterial foams for the industrial usage.
Furthermore, we have utilized from aloe vera, as a natural and anti-oxidant additive, during the production processes of foams.
Low Emission
The regulations related to synthetic materials have always been updated at international platform and all laws for emission are getting stricter. We have been continuing our activities for lower emission for all raw materials we use. Among these are the change of primary and secondary raw materials and revising the production line for lower emission materials.
Hyper Soft Pu Foam
We have been realizing industrial manufacturing of The Hyper Soft Pu Foam product used especially by the sleep products sector and owned by few companies in the world. We have been conducting improvement operations at pilot scale about the product and the developments are followed up closely.
Phenolic Yellowing
Although phenolic yellowing is not a completely eliminable problem, it is a problem which can be reduced or postponed. In order the problem to be solved, the pu foam, which is a polymer, should be examined at monomer basis and should be improved.
We have a joint study with Meliksah University and the study is at the phase of literature scan.
Compression Set
Since we are an export-oriented firm and since our products are shipped with roll-pack system, the deformation of the products should be minimized after roll-pack process and should be turned to their pre-packaging positions. That’s why we undertake monomer-based works.
Mold Bedding
We have realized mold mattress production with a formulation we discovered with a special mixture. Thanks to this system we are continuing works to qualify mold mattress production which is getting more common worldwide. The little revisions are planned with R&D studies before it is put on mass-production.
Equivalent Products Experiments
We have continuously been conducting raw material operations at pilot scale in our company. Our purchasing department and supplier companies are integrated for product improvements and obtaining if the product is not available with raw material activities made by our R&D department. As our suppliers can come to us by offers we can also make equivalent works for production of the product depending on literature works.
Bed Design
Product development works are also carried out by our R&D department.
3D drawing programs such as AutoCAD and Solid Works used to meet customer demands. The main purpose at these designs is to increase comfort and provide maximum ergonomic shape could be in harmony with human body.
The foam combinations used are as important as drawings managed by the expertise of our company.
What would you say about Kayseri and the mattress industry?
The industry of Kayseri has been grouped in some sectors. The mostimportant ones of these are the furniture and mattress industries. As far as I know, there are around 1000 companies in the Kayseri Organized Zone. One third of these companies are composed of furniture and mattress companies.
Kayseri has been a hub for these sectors. 27% of the total foam production is realized by us and over 25% by other companies in Kayseri. This means that more than half of Turkey’s total foam production is produced in Kayseri. This contributes to employment and to the sector.
Unregistered economy is one of the major problems of the sector. This should be solved immediately.
Turkey can be the supplier of Europe
We also expect support in exports because freight is a big problem for us. Despite this fact, we realizeexportation around 10%. Poland, for instance, has developed considerably in the mattress and furniture industries. As far as I know, they have a production volume of 9 billion dollars. They export around 7 billion worth of that production.
They are at the position of being Europe’s supplier. The manufacturing slid to East Europe for the labor costs and production costs becameexpensive in Central Europe. Turkey has a potential at this sector and we have quality and clean working principles and discipline. We can even compete with China at this issue. Our delivery of quality products in a short time makes us competitive in international markets.
