Good afternoon! Tell us about Ozen Air Technology and your history with the company.
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Fehmi Esen, President, Ozen Air Technology, LLC.We manufacture and market a full line of low- and medium-pressure piston and screw air compressors, as well as air dryers, air tanks and accessories. Ozen Air Technology is a subsidiary of Ozen Kompresor based in Konya, Turkey. Our company has been manufacturing air compressors and related equipment for more than 50 years. In 2018, we expanded into North and South America with an operation in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is exciting for us given the opportunity we see.
I’ve served in a variety of management roles in the areas of manufacturing and engineering during the past 10 years with the company. I became President of Ozen Air Technology in 2016. I feel fortunate to be working with manufacturers we serve because my experience in manufacturing, combined with my background as a materials and metallurgy engineer, gives me the right perspective. I’ve been in our customers’ shoes and I know what they need to succeed – and importantly – what we need to do as a company to help them.
Describe a typical manufacturer’s needs and how that influences product design and engineering at Ozen Air Technology.
It’s all about efficiency and Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Any air compressor must efficiently provide high-quality air at all times to help manufacturers hold down energy costs. It’s also an understatement to say air compressors are the heart of most industrial manufacturing facilities and key to overall OEE. If the air compressors stop, the whole facility stops for sure, which has a big impact on overall productivity and cost. So Ozen manufactures reliable air compressors that operate with minimal downtime.
These are the two biggest factors driving everything we design and manufacture. We closely follow ISO 9001 standards to continuously maintain and improve our process and the products we produce. Here in the United States, and elsewhere, we focus on demand-flow assembly lines and offers a comprehensive range of spare parts and a high level of service.
We also offer one of the most comprehensive warranty programs in the United States with warranties from 12 to 120 months. We’re also upgrading our testing facility in Turkey in order to participate in the Compressed Air & Gas Institute’s Performance Verification Program. We expect to be an active member of the program in 2020.
Our commitment is to manufacture quality products at competitive prices. It’s a chain that starts with the customers’ success.
What does success look like for distributors and end-users you serve?
Let me first give you my definition of customer success. It’s not just another phrase for customer satisfaction. It’s more than that. It is success. If our equipment is part of an end-user’s ability to make a profit that means our distributors win. If our distributors win it means Ozen Air Technology wins. It gets back to the critical need for us to focus 100% on equipment that provides efficiency, reliability and durability.
This approach applies to everything we do in over 50 countries, including Eastern Europe, the Middle East and now North and South America where we’ve put all the initial building blocks in place, including our North Carolina facility where we assemble small, 5.5 to 40 horsepower (hp) rotary screw air compressors. We expect to assemble larger rotary screw units at this location within the next six months to keep pace with growth.
We also stock parts for our entire inventory at our North Carolina operation so we can deliver parts immediately at any time of any day to customers in this region of the world. We also use the facility there to train distributors and OEM partners.
We currently have more than 100 distributors worldwide and we’re looking forward to expanding our network in the United States, with an emphasis early on in the Southern and Southeastern areas of the country.
Explain your strategy for partnering with distributors in North America, or elsewhere.
We want to partner with distributors who don’t just sell compressed air equipment, but instead work with end-users to help them lower costs, whether it’s improved equipment maintenance or lower energy consumption. Of course, it’s also a matter of a compressed air system contributing to overall plant uptime and productivity and we want our distributors to play a key role in those areas with customers.
This all means our distributors must have a very high level of technical knowledge of compressed air systems and extensive knowledge of the customers they serve. I think it’s also important to point out that we’re a flexible company. We work with distributors on a customer-by-customer basis to create the solutions that work best.
Speaking of solutions, tell us about some of Ozen Air Technology’s products.
A key offering is our OABC D rotary screw booster air compressors. We are the only manufacturer that supplies this type of air compressor, which is commonly found in applications such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottling operations and laser cutting machines where pressure of up to 500 psi is needed, versus the typical 100 to 140 psi required at typical manufacturing plants. We provide a range of rotary screw booster air compressors from 25 to 75 hp, each of which delivers up to 580 psi.
We see a lot of growth potential for these products since most operations that need high pressure currently use reciprocating piston booster air compressors and they stand to benefit by replacing those with rotary screw booster air compressors.
Ozen Air Technology offers rotary screw booster air compressors, which range from 25 to 75 hp (18-55 kW) and deliver up to 580 psi.
The reason we are optimistic about sales growth for boosters goes back to our fundamental goal of helping end-users drive down the cost of ownership of their air compressors. Our Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) rotary screw air booster air compressor uses 15 to 20 percent less energy than a reciprocating unit operating as a load, no-load unit. Additionally, the service interval for a rotary machine is 8,000 hours whereas a reciprocating unit has service intervals of 2,000, 4,000 and 8,000 hours. The costs for replacement parts are also less for rotary screw booster air compressors when compared with reciprocating units.
Of course, we also expect to see continued growth with other key products, such as our OASC Series of rotary screw air compressors.
What makes the OACS Series stand out for distributors and industrial manufacturers?
This is a complete line of air compressors, ranging from 5.5 to 430 hp with the capacity to deliver 19 to 2,000 scfm with delivery pressure at 100 to 190 psi.
Our OASC Series units are available as belt-drive or direct-drive units. We think customers will also appreciate a number of standard features on these machines, including dryer bypass lines, phase reversal relays and automatic drain valves. Our OASC D Series (Direct Drive) air compressors also come standard with Danfoss VFD drives, which of course, adjusts the machine’s motor speed according to the actual air demand profile. The result is an energy savings up of to 35% when compared with a non-VFD air compressor working continuously in load/unload mode.
Tank-mounted OASC Td series air compressors, which range from 5.5 to 40 hp (4-30 kW).
How would you describe the outlook for Ozen Air Technology’s in North America?
We’re in the early stages of gaining a good market share and we expect that to continue.
Our strategy is to slowly introduce ourselves to North and South American markets, which is in addition to putting the initial building blocks in place I mentioned earlier. We’re very optimistic about the future as we progress with our strategic goals.
Thank you for your insights, Ozen Air Technology.
For more information, visit www.ozenairtech.com.
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