In this classic Bearing News Interview, Mr. Bilal Saygılı, Founder & CEO at Saygılı Rulman, discusses his background in the bearing industry and provides readers with a snapshot of his company’s broad bearing and power transmission portfolio offerings.
In addition to serving as a distributor of many premium brands, Saygılı Rulman has developed its brand, ETERNO PLUS, and also provides after-sales support, technical support, and engineering services in Turkiye and various other countries in the region.
What is the story of Saygılı Rulman, and can you tell us more about your background, current activities and how you did enter the bearing industry?
I can say that I fell into the charisma of bearings at a very young age. When I met such a critical product for the continuity of life, I followed it…
I got to know the bearing when I was a student at the Mechanical Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University and even bought bearings from the bearing dealers in Izmir and sold them to companies in Istanbul industry to save my school money. After graduation, we started in a small office and with a few racks of bearings. I worked hard day and night, analyzing how this sector works in other countries, traveling abroad at every opportunity and getting a network.
Our company, which was established in 1986, today continues its business life with its young talents and dynamic staff in our facility which is located in a closed area of 10.000 m2 and has a warehouse with a capacity of 13.500 pallets. In short, we can say that Saygılı Rulman’s story is the story of starting from scratch, high effort, and team building.
Our Company supplies bearings and power transmission products with its expert staff. In the light of more than 35 years of knowledge and experience, it carries out effective field studies in Turkiye and abroad with its distributor network.
Our facility has a modern infrastructure with social areas, a bearing technical laboratory and a seminar hall for 100 people and of course the basic working areas convenient for pandemic conditions with large spaces. With the ERP program used, all departments work in harmony and full integration is ensured in the workflows.
Which are the main products and brands in your portfolio?
Our core business is bearing and power transmission products. Our product range includes bearings, bearing units, pillow blocks and for PT products; chains, sprockets, belts, pulleys, bushings, couplings, power locks, and assembly- disassembly equipment.
We are the official distributor of NACHI, SCHAEFFLER, JTEKT and ZKL Bearings, as well as GATES brand belts, DODGE brand housings and TRELLEBORG brand sealing solution products. In addition to these premium brands, we have developed our own brand ETERNO PLUS, whose patent and engineering works belong to us, as a price/performance product that has won the satisfaction of many customers.
Our company is located in a closed area of 10.000 m2 and has a warehouse capacity of 13.500 pallets.
Beside the distribution of industrial components, are there any other services which you offer to customers?
In addition to providing the fast and accurate products supply, we also provide our customers after-sales support, technical support, and engineering services. We offer on-site or remote services with our expert engineer staff. Such as choosing the right bearing, correct use of the selected bearing, calculations of bearing life, assembly, and disassembly applications. We also organize technical training and seminars to the related sectoral teams.
We provide 24/7 service in and outside Turkiye. The main countries where we export our products are Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
Which are the key industries and markets you serve?
Our high stock volume and product range allow us to supply to many different fields. It is possible to find bearings for many industries on Saygılı Rulman shelves. We identify the needs and demands of each sector and provide sector-specific solutions. Industrial sectors such as Iron-Steel, Cement, Mining, Energy, Transportation, Food, Agriculture, Paper are examples of our key sectors. We provide 24/7 service in and outside Turkiye. The main countries where we export our products are Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan.
What do you think about automatization of the industrial distribution?
Many sectors are at the edge of automation changes and challenges. The bearing industry is also experiencing this inevitable change.
Bearing manufacturers first analyze the production process in their facilities and in the light of these analyses, they design or buy the right machinery and production robots for automation thus trying to minimize human-based production errors.
At the point of storage and distribution of these products, automatic product placement and picking systems, which we now call dark warehouses, picking, palletizing, and packaging robots are the subjects that we get to know more every day.
As Saygılı Rulman, we achieve healthy product tracking and entry-exit processing speed with QR code application in our warehouse. We can quickly collect and place products with our latest model reach trucks from our shelf height of 12 meters. The parcels are packed by vacuum packaging method so that they are not affected by the climatic conditions when they go from our warehouse to another city or country. Thus, it is prevented from being damaged by factors such as heat, cold or humidity.
In addition, we provide drop shipping to our customer’s customer so we can speed up the delivery time to the end customer and provide our customers with an advantage in shipping costs.
On the other hand, with Saygılı B2B -our online ordering system- we enable our business partners to see their order stages such as product, stock, price and shipment on a single screen. This system also offers a platform that enables them to follow all the steps of the supply chain including the production times.
How do you see the future of the bearing market in your region?
Due to its geopolitical position, our region has started to turn into a region where natural gas and oil reserves are concentrated. Oil reserves in both the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea give hope for tomorrow. In addition, there are developments such as the discovery of new mineral reserves from all over Turkiye and our neighboring countries.
We believe that Turkiye’s need for bearings and power transmission products in the production, development and service of these machinery and sectors will increase the potential as of now and in the near future, together with issues such as our country’s increasing use of high technology, giving importance to automation, and the hydro mechanical systems becoming stronger.
In the future, heavy industry in Turkiye will become even stronger. The brand value of our country is increasing day by day, especially in the cement, casting, iron and steel sectors, which are among the most important sectors of Europe, in agricultural machinery, hydromechanical and automation systems as well. In parallel with this, we think that the bearing needs will increase almost 50% in the next 10 years, with the change of some bearing series in Turkiye. As for the situation of our regional countries, there is unrest and disorder in many countries. Economically, they cannot even discipline their own central bank reserves and they are struggling with inflation. The economic crises in the Middle East and the inability of the governments to come to power prevent the development of the industry in those countries. We hope that there will be peace and well-being around us in the near future and together we can produce products that can serve the whole world like Europe does, produce business and have high brand value. Turkiye continues its path of development with firm steps.
More information about Saygılı Rulman can be found at the link.
