KANAT BOYA has been operating in the field of protective coatings and general industrial paints since 1986 and continues its production activities with nearly 350 employees at its 15.000 sqm factory in İzmir Kemalpaşa Organized Industrial Zone. Kanat Boya, which bears high risks of fire due to the stored chemicals, has preferred EEC for the installation and maintenance of the Edwards Fire Detection and Alarm Systems and Aerosol In-Panel Extinguishing Systems as part of its renovation process.
The administrative and production building of our facility was built in 2004. As we grew in the course of time, we conducted the first renovation in 2009, and as part of our latest expansion process in 2020, we started to cooperate with EEC. Actually, we were not looking for a new business partner. We already had an existing business partner in this field. However, thanks to the close interest and warm communication of your corporate sales manager during the project phase, we decided to work with EEC.
In fact, when I first saw that your references mainly consist of business centers, shopping malls, residences that are very different from industrial facilities, I thought that you would not understand our requirements sufficiently, the process would be very costly and an efficient relationship would not be possible. I cannot imagine the human impact, process and the necessary intelligent systems in an 80-floor building, and the relevant responsibilities are very different. Naturally, they prefer the partner that best suits their own risks. When we subsequently investigated your experiences in industrial facilities and realized the professionalism of your teams in each sector, we started to cooperate with your company without any hesitation.
We are aware of our facility risks. However, your team has guided us excellently in technical terms regarding the most suitable measure required to be taken to eliminate risks. For example, we said: “These are our risks and we want these measures” but they suggested us more efficient alternatives that were suitable for our facility by saying: “Wouldn’t these measures be better for you?”. In this way, they enabled us to reach solutions that were truly useful for us.
I would also like you to join our drills. For example, we consider “Where should the first point be?” However, when you look at it from a different perspective, you may have some different suggestions. EEC has vast knowledge and experience in a wide range of problems and solutions as it serves industrial facilities operating in all sectors. We find this quite precious.
The real benefit of the Edward Fire Detection System is that it makes us feel safe because we see that the system and sensors are actively operating as a result of our regular tests. Thankfully, we did not experience any risky situations. For example, according to the scenarios that we set up with you, the storage section is completely secured in our drills. Fire doors are activated. The zones are protected properly. Then we can open them in a controlled way. Even seeing this efficiency is very important for us. Our devices were already selected as ex-proof materials suitable for our facility environment. Also, it has not been necessary to use spare parts yet, but according to our searches of references, you are able to provide spare parts quickly, which is another crucial factor for us.
Another benefit is that the system is expandable because we are a constantly developing organization. Our capacity has been increased approximately by 3 times from 2020 to 2024. At first, we had a building of 27.000 sqm. We have another 27.000 sqm space at the back. We are planning our projects with the logic of expanding there. Naturally, as our production operations increase and our building expands, the compatibility of our systems in line with this expansion is crucial.
Usually, panels in industrial facilities are located inside the production areas. We think that they should be protected with the FM200 or Aerosol. We initially considered the cable costs and installed our panels outside the production areas due to our facility risks. We are testing the in-panel extinguishing system with a small start, perhaps 10% of the existing panels. I can say that we are observing it for our expansion plans. For example, making an immediate intervention to the slightest situation in our new mass facility is very important for us. We are considering to take measures with this system for our new investment.
As the team has vast experience, their ability to offer suitable solutions to meet our demands demonstrates us the difference of receiving services from EEC. They know the situation where I want to feel safe. In addition to the panel in the security area that can be intervened, they installed a second screen in the panel room, and a significant problem was solved for me. I know my risks. However, I cannot know what to ask for to prevent it, or what I ask for might not be right or sufficient. After all, we are not engineers. We know our own business. Your team gives the rating for the alternatives according to the best option, so that we can make a proper choice accordingly. Then they start the implementation. We also investigated your experiences based on your references. Frankly, I did not hear anything negative about your company and we did not experience any negative situation either. I think that the only weakness of EEC is gas detection. You are much stronger and much more experienced in the other fields. This might be my only criticism.
Everyone in the Aegean Region knows each other and asks “who did you have your system installed by, are you satisfied with them?” I would say to those asking “You Can Cooperate with EEC with peace of mind”. Mr. Hasan also made some recommendations. We know that a different brand is used in another factory. While doing a research, we learn about the positive and negative aspects, and continue by considering our own conditions. After all, these systems also have an economic impact in the long term.
Actually, as we gradually switched from our existing devices to your Edwards product, I cannot fully comment on the wear and tear margin because the devices are new. I had a question mark about beam type detectors because they could only be affected by dust and sun rays. We have dust and sun in the production areas. However, we did not experience any problems with the detectors.
Your engineers guided us in selecting the detector suitable for our new thinner production platform. We wanted the multi-sensors to be synchronized. However, they explained to us with detailed calculations that flame detectors are better than beam detectors in this case because of ceiling height etc. In fact, we were not thinking of using these detectors there, but later due to the experience that we have gained, we said “this team knows what’s right”, and had those types of devices installed in all areas, including the other distillation area and even the tank farm.
Your products and services are not cheap. This is very clear. In fact, the concept ‘cheap’ is different for me. As they say, performance is important. The unit prices of a company can be cheaper than yours, but the service that it provides can be bad. For me, that company is expensive. In this sense, I can’t classify EEC as an expensive company. You haven’t made me spend extra money so far. You always come up with alternatives.
It is also possible in terms of the deadlines of the works. Factories that pay attention to OHS rules have certain requirements. Details such as preparing the documentation of a person that will start working in the facility in advance, having personal protective equipment available, conducting periodic equipment checks, planning the trainings to be provided by our OHS team, etc. are important. We are not an easy company in terms of these factors. We make things difficult for what is required to be done. However, I have not come across any deficiency with EEC that would prevent the timely execution of the works or causing any shutdowns. When we had problems, they were caused by us. The EEC team was ready, but we had to keep the work waiting because I told them “don’t do it now”. Naturally, I cannot say that the delays were caused by them.
The personnel of some companies may cause chaos if they turn left instead of right because they do not pay close attention to what is where in the factory. They might bring the operations to an irreversible point with a wrong move taken by them. From this point of view, the EEC team is aware of our sensitivities in the facility, and they come up with the necessary equipment on time and do not act independently, so that we could easily manage our operations.
Mr. Hasan, the Investments and Technical Purchasing Manager of our Factory, has nearly 200 customers. EEC is among the top 5 companies by which he communicates in the smoothest way. This is all thanks to Mr. Aytekin. We did not feel the need to get to know his team or managers. He has always supported us with telephone calls and visits. It is very valuable that he even stops by to say hello and check if there is anything that we need even out of schedule.
As we use your Corporate Sales Manager Mr. Aytekin as a bridge, he directs your technical team. Your team members coming to our facility are conscious and have knowledge about their jobs. They act with full awareness. When we ask something on the phone, they guide us by giving instructions such as “you should go there and press this button on the device” because they know every part of the factory as if they are looking at it from the satellite. That is why we did not have to use your on-duty telephone number so far.
We have a lot of flammable materials in our facility. We take all measures at our raw material, semi-finished and finished product warehouses. In addition, we provide our relevant employees with fire extinguishing training. They can handle a small fire, but they are not professional firefighters. We cannot put them at risk. For this reason, in case of an unintentional incident despite the measures, all we say to our employees is: "We have a maximum of 4 minutes, and the time of arrival of the firefighters is just 4 minutes; if it turns into a flame before they arrive and you cannot extinguish it, get out of the building immediately when the flame reaches the flare-up level. Just run away, because your safety of life is the most important thing."
What gives us these 4 minutes is our fire detection and alarm system. It is crucial to detect the situation in the first second before it flares up. If the detection does not take place at the earliest moment and we do not notice it, the situation will get worse because the fire department will be informed late. This system protects both our property and our lives. In fact, we would install this system even if there was no legal obligation to do so.
The failure by the detectors to give us enough time is like cutting off the oxygen of someone connected to an oxygen tank. In a situation that is not detected early; chaos breaks out inside, exit can be lost due to panic, poisoning and falls begin. In addition, after 4 minutes, the steel constructions would start to melt. The tanks start to open. The flashover level of our raw materials is very high. There are 17 compartments in our facility. We do not have the chance to separate the areas. We can think of the system as the lungs of the facility because intervention is impossible after the burning stage. Previously, we wanted to see the risks in our facility, and burned our flammable materials in a planned way at the garden of a fire company. They asked me “did you bring a special mixture, how does it burn so much?” That’s why receiving an alarm early and 3 to 4 minutes is very important for us.
We can always consider obtaining support from EEC for our other life and property safety systems. The drawings of our new project, a 4-floor 5500 sqm R&D center, have been completed. If we can obtain the license in October, the project will be ready until the end of the year. It will include a small version of our production and marketing operations, and we are open to advanced technologies for this building because we have submitted our reports to the Ministry such as “indicating the location of the worksite of a person, lunch time of a person and working in a particular area at a particular time” etc. For example, it would be more suitable for the marketing team not to enter the R&D area and those working in R&D not to enter the marketing area. We may cooperate with EEC regarding the separation of the floors to identify where the elevators will stop, or monitoring by using a facial recognition system in addition to our existing card access system, or ensuring better integration and efficiency of the systems such as public address system and fire scenarios.
