A Success Story with KA-MA: Septemar Yacht Interior Design Co.; Two years ago, we at Karabudak Engineering installed a state-of-the-art automatic spray machine with a UV drying line for Septemar Furniture, a leading brand in megayacht interior design. Today, we had the privilege of discussing industry trends and the positive impact of our machinery on their production with their company owner, Mr. Korkut Seçkin. We’re grateful for his appreciative words and look forward to guiding more manufacturers in enhancing their painting or lacquering line.
KAMA – Hi Mr. Seçkin. Thank you very much for hosting us here today. First of all, we want to get to know you much more closer. Who is Korkut Bey? How did he get into this business? Could you briefly introduce yourself to us?
– Welcome, Hello. I am Korkut Seçkin, the founder and owner of Septemar, a company that manufactures megayacht furniture. I have been in this sector for 24 years, I have been doing this profession. I graduated from Kadıköy Anatolian High School. I studied industrial product design at Technical University, then I completed my master’s degree in Architecture at Yıldız Technical University. I have been doing this job since 2000. I founded Septemar company 16 years ago. Today, we do this job with a staff of approximately 150 people, including 110 internal and 40 subcontractors. I can say that we are a leading company in this field in Turkey. We are one of the important companies in the world. I hope we can become one of the leading companies in our industry in the global market. Our goals are huge at this point.
KAMA – So what was Septemar’s turning point? How did your Septemar adventure begin?
– Septemar has many turning points. Septemar actually started with an ideology. Septemar started with an ideology rather than a commercial idea. It started with total quality management ideology. Septemar’s total quality, efficiency and happiness are why employee satisfaction is as important as customer satisfaction. More precisely, we were founded with the idea that increasing happiness will contribute to increasing total quality and total productivity. At this point, the Septemar customer has always been Septemar’s priority, it has always been a very important fact. Septemar’s customers, but also its employees, were always important. In fact, its employees consist of people who have been working at Septemar for many years.
For this reason, they work as part of the family, calling Septemar a big family while contributing to our total quality management as interior customers. Thus, I wouldn’t call them employees, I would call them our friends, that’s how we see our colleagues. We started with this philosophy. Türkiye has always been an important partner in the maritime industry. We oscillate between third and fourth place in the world in yacht manufacturing. In fact, we have recently slipped towards second place, behind Italy. We think that Turkey will be a better school in this regard. I mean, Türkiye will make cars and planes one day. We believe that Turkey can do anything, but Türkiye is already building ships. Türkiye has been building yachts already. We are very good at this and we think we can do even better and be more better at what we are manufacturing. We want to be an echole in this world.
As a sector, we want to have a word in the matter. We think that Septemar and Korkut should make positive contributions to the sector in this regard. We approach with a sense of responsibility. Septemar has had many turning points since its establishment. Certainly. This was a turning point:
Shortly after founding Septemar, the 2008 crisis began in the world. Surviving was an important thing for us at that time. Well, we are a company that likes to invest in technology. We are a company that likes to look at things differently. So, this design training I received perhaps influenced many of the company’s decisions at this point because we learned to look at everything differently and interpret events differently in the design training.
KAMA – It’s like divide it into pieces and redesign it.
Yes, traditional methods are very good things, but the world is changing very quickly. Last 20 years. While I was studying at university, we were drawing technical drawings with rapido. Today, even Autocad is considered outdated, in a sense, even two-dimensional drawings are left behind. Today, we have integrated CADCam into our company and we produce with CADCam. It is no longer possible to stop this change. So the internet has arrived, today we are talking about artificial intelligence. Maybe in 20 years we will see different production facilities, we are talking about three-dimensional printers, three-dimensional scanners. There is an unstoppable technology thing that has existed in the last 25 years. We try to use these, we try to do things that have not been done before, we try to look at things differently and we get positive feedback from this. Of course, we experience difficulties, but we also receive positive feedback.
KAMA – Great, so how did you decide to develop the paint shop process? Of course, you have a design-oriented thinking.
-We have always said that furniture is what separates a yacht from a ship. So yes, a yacht is something, it floats on a ship, a yacht also floats, but a yacht is special to humans, that is, a yacht is a surface palace. Although the yachts we build are of different in sizes, we also build megayachts of 40 meters and above. What distinguishes these unique boats from other ships is their furniture. What makes furniture inside these swimming palaces is the choice of owners. Because furniture is something special to people. People will touch and feel. When our customers come here, they actually touch the coated material and the polished material. They feel that thing, that difference. The most important feeling for people is to feel by touching. That’s why a good polish is a must for us. This is where we can feel the difference. For us, this difference in both paint and varnish is the quality that differs us of our competitors. So we need to be very, very good at polishing. So it’s a choice for the customer, but it’s an obligation for us to make it in the upmost quality. For this reason, the need for very good polish makes us to attach to the paint shop and we pay more attention to our investment on paint shop.
KAMA – OK, you have chosen your automatic dyeing machine partner. We did a study with you. Thank you for choosing Kama. What methodology did you follow when choosing us as Septemar? So, can customers with examples like yours benefit from your experiences?
– Polishing shop investment is a very important investment for us; This is a huge investment. As you know, it is a serious investment in terms of cost and a serious step in terms of steps. Just as we are actually a boutique production and our customers do not meet their needs with very standard production, in our eyes, polishing shop investment is the same, that is, special solutions and special touches are definitely required in polishing shop investment.
So this is not a completely personalized machine, it is not a boutique production machine, but yes, there are parts made specifically for us. At this point, Kama‘s approach is very important for us. First of all, we also looked at foreign brands but we couldn’t see any difference. So we haven’t seen anything where Kama is falling behind. Kama is at least as successful as them in this regard. Well done, congratulations to you by the way. The approach of the entire Kama team is that they really listen to us and come to us with special solutions, from the layout of our factory here to what we want in the final product. They listened to us and came to us with solutions that met our needs. Kama is already a successful company. Kama’s references are solid, solid and the quality is evident. We can say that we did not have to think too much when choosing their approach.
KAMA – Thank you very much. Thanks. So, what did the automatic paint lines or additional production lines we established as Septemar and Kama bring? I mean, in general, when you look at it as Septemar, I chose Kama Makina, but we made a very good decision in this business, is there any place you say bravo?
However, we have always tried to offer the best workmanship since the day we were founded. But of course, we started not even as an SME, but as a small business, a 100 square meter workshop. We came here in 16 years. Very good workmanship, a nice step, but besides that you need to have very good machines, you need to use very good raw materials, you need to have very good technology. When we combine all of these, you increase your quality. Anything alone is not enough. What did this bring to us? What did this automatic size bring to us? First of all, it gave us a standard quality, a sustainable quality. Ultimately, this is an operation that is above the operation we do manually, that is, our filling at the bottom is more successful. It enabled us to ensure that our top coat was more homogeneous and that the finish quality was much better when supported by sanding lines. It provided tremendous speed in terms of speed.
We are not a company that does mass production, so we make more than the square meters we produce.
You know, these manufacturers are far below, but we are a company that always struggles against time, and if you are going to apply that paint today, you have to wait 3 days in the conventional system, we have come way ahead of the 4-day sanding process. So we can actually produce our product in a much shorter time.
We can end it. And we offer a much better quality of workmanship. It has made a tremendous contribution to us in terms of quality, time, workmanship and efficiency. That’s why we are very happy with this investment.
KAMA – Thank you, thank you. Having an automatic painting system. What changed in your production quality?
– Let me put it this way, for example, the most difficult job for us is bright people. You don’t like shiny ones like this, you know, you don’t like them, of course, we have to show them differently. But like this, it is something you do with fear. You spend a lot of labor and time. You do it, you do it, then you come back and when you don’t like the result, the repercussions are very heavy. Of course, with the help of sandpaper, we achieve a much cleaner bottom surface, a much more beautifully filled bottom surface. Also, since we always work with plywood, plywood is a material that continues to move from the bottom, so plywood is much more durable than MDF.
It is a difficult material. For polishing and lacquering. After capturing a beautiful surface from the bottom, we achieved very clean transitions in the final coats. And we had such a funny time. I mean, everything happened so quickly. The work was completed in 2 days, we waited 2 days for the topcoat and then did the details. That result made us very happy. Now we tell our customers, if you want we can make it glossy, we say don’t be stuck with matte, let’s make it glossy, let’s make it glossy; It was such a beautiful thing for us.
In this sense, sustainability is very important. We deliver the 50 meter boat in approximately 18 to 24 months. It has a lot of parts. Yes, its square meter is very large, one square meter is approximately 500 square meters of living space, there is very detailed workmanship, and you cannot always control which piece you throw next to which in 18-24 months. A piece you made in 3 months can sometimes come together with a piece you made in 10 months. That’s why continuity of the same quality is important there.
In other words, Painting Machines offer a more stable and sustainable quality than the human factor.
I can say that they have made serious contributions to us in terms of quality.
KAMA – So, did it make any difference in your customer portfolio? You adapted wedge machines and started using brighter surfaces in your production without fear. Did this create change? So, can you say that we can now focus on more professional work and make offers more easily?
– This creates such a change. We were producing quality products and doing quality workmanship from the very beginning. The more you support this with technology and machinery, the better your work becomes. In other words, somewhere, tools and work are praised by hand, so here is a very valuable workmanship and machinery.
We want to crown this with the ingenuity of technology. Quality is a must in our industry. We need to offer the best quality, and for this best quality, small nuances can make big differences. Now this is of course one of the trump cards that strengthens our hand. So have we gotten a spin on it so far? We did not receive it, but I can say that this strengthens our position.
KAMA -Great. Do you think that you gain a competitive advantage by using Kama Dyeing machines?
– There is undoubtedly a competitive advantage for Septemar in sustainable quality, as we mentioned once. We improve your quality, the second is about time. We have a much more planable time. This has two advantages: It shortens the time spent in polishing, and apart from that, it makes it planable. Turns in polish can take a very long time, now those turns have been reduced considerably. Because now it’s a much faster time, it’s much more plannable. Quality is a must in the industry and now everyone wants to have what they want as soon as possible, with as little waiting time as possible. That’s why time strengthens our hand and increases our capacity after the machine. Because polish was one of the critical pads, one of the bottlenecks for us, when we achieved relief there, we increased our production capacity, in this sense, our whole hand was strengthened. We increased our opportunities.
KAMA – Well, if we think about it in terms of the European market, can we say that the company suddenly moved its customer portfolio, which was centered around France, Germany and Finland, to higher segment markets such as England and America?
-So it was a difficult question, as I said, we have always been competitive as a company, so now I am afraid that the answer to the question will come out like this. We were a little weaker before we bought the machine, I wouldn’t say we became better after we bought it. As a company, our principle has always been to do better. We want to go to the best customers possible, that is, we want to compete more seriously with German companies rather than the competition in Turkey, this is our step. It was an important step that was needed, it was an important trump card that we had to use. I can say that Kama provided this to us.
KAMA – Great. As Kama Makina, our aim is to ensure that all the companies we work with represent their brands more strongly in higher markets. It would be a great pleasure for us if we made such a contribution to your production. Thank you very much for your time.
-I would also like to thank all the employees of Kama Machinery, we are very happy with this cooperation. We hope that we will have even more different partnerships. Because we see this as a journey we embark on together. Buying machines of this size, developing, renewing and improving them together. We are very happy with it so far. Thank you.
KAMA – Appreciate, thank you.
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