Working under the leadership of Emre Can Balcıoğlu, the R&D department manager and BLC Group Board Member, the team maintains its operations for continuous improvement and innovative solutions in production processes. The applied artificial intelligence production module is one of the leading systems in this field up to date. However, in the future, the focus will be on waterless dyeing, reaching production processes that consume less energy and chemicals, robotic storage, tracking work processes with robots and creating dark factory zones.
BLC Group is one of the prominent giants of the textile industry in Turkey with its R&D investments. The success of the group, which directly or indirectly exports 85% of its production to the world's fashion giants, lies behind its investments in technology, digitalization and sustainability. Recently, BLC Group has started to optimize its business planning and customer satisfaction with the production module adapted through artificial intelligence production module it has developed with its two global suppliers. BLC Group Board Member Emre Can Balcıoğlu says that thanks to the artificial intelligence-based technologies they developed together with two global companies, they were able to complete the work orders created at the production facility with the highest efficiency.
"We Integrated Ourselves to Every Stage of Production"
Explaining that the system also allows customer-based customizations in product quality, Emre Can Balcıoğlu said, “We are integrated ourselves into every stage of production with artificial intelligence systems. The artificial intelligence process, which starts with the planning of the production process, continues with the laboratory simulations we achieve while producing our products. These simulations are then transferred to large-scale production processes and aim to reduce the margin of error of production to zero and to ensure its continuity. We follow our chemical distribution and production control processes with robotic-based applications that we are currently processing. In addition, some of the product quality controls are also carried out automatically. Our new plans include robotic storage, tracking business processes with robots, and creating dark factory zones."
Triple Energy Efficiency
This artificial intelligence-based new system developed by the BLC Group R&D team also makes a significant difference in standardization of production and being environmentally friendly. Balcıoğlu says, "With our efficient combustion systems that we have developed for energy saving, we could increase the efficiency of the energy resources we apply by more than 200 percent, that is, three times, and in this way we both reduced our damage to the environment and taken important steps towards protecting natural resources."
Simulation Brings Error Closer to Zero
The importance given by the textile giant to automation in production played an important role in the emergence of production simulation technology. Balcıoğlu also says that by conducting pre-production simulations, they will be able to monitor the work progress of their products at the last station and the processes that need to be corrected. Explaining that they would reduce their margin of error to near-zero levels in such way, Balcıoğlu says, “In addition, these technologies have eliminated many indecisive stages, thus ensuring the continuity of our production plans.”
There's a Dark Factory Set on Target
BLC Group, which carries its strength in textiles to production technologies with the number of technologies it produces today, continues on its way in developing new processes and producing different production equipment. Among the new technologies that BLC Group has brought to the Turkish industry so far are machines with zero carbon footprint, equipment with high efficiency and production capacity, technologies that make traceability transparent. Balcıoğlu says, “The production vehicles with new technology, implemented by our R&D team, come out of the project stages and come to life by each passing day.”
Speaking about the plan to create dark factory areas, Balcıoğlu shared the following about the dark factories: “The concept of the dark factory is a production methodology. In terms of the concept it represents, it is associated with minimal human intervention or human error in production. This process is based on automation and robotic technologies in order to reduce many expenses caused by human error in production, to reduce the carbon footprint coming from the same source, and to end human errors in production and the consumption caused by them. Thus, while the efficiency in the production facilities will be maximized, problematic situations such as work accidents will also be eliminated. We are also working to create dark factory areas.”
