Logistics is one of the sectors affected by the pandemic. As a company, how did you evaluate this process, what strategy did you act with?

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a serious and unprecedented change in the logistics industry. As a well-established company in the sector, we have made very important investments especially in the last five years. With our foresight and vision, we have prepared ourselves for such large-scale crises. Our technological infrastructure investments, wide fleet network, digital transformation and intermodal efforts have enabled us to quickly adapt to both the pandemic period and the post-pandemic. We have combined our customer-oriented approach with new business models, and we have given more importance to sustainability and efficiency than ever before. Thus, we are happy to see the results of our vision and investments we have made for five years.

If we talk about what we do in this process; We continued to provide value-creating business results to our customers by reading the outputs of our data analytics studies well throughout the process. We have been able to respond to the needs of our customers in the fastest way by analyzing the expectations of our customers, which we serve in different sectors and which fluctuate in different sizes according to the volume of the sector they are in. During this period, we managed an uninterrupted process in terms of customer relations, and we were able to provide service at any time. We have created end-to-end contactless processes and redefined our methods in order to reduce or completely remove all contact points throughout the supply chain, as required by the continuity of the workflow. While designing these processes, we created new kiosk and automation points in the fields. We also continue to work on the integration of image processing systems to control the distances between the personnel in the field.

In addition, the pandemic has increased the importance of intermodal transportation. While maritime transport draws a picture that is less affected by the pandemic period than road transport, we reevaluated road and intermodal transport capacity due to negativities such as the container problem. Considering operational efficiency, we shifted the loads to different transportation modes. We have planned operations for loads suitable for highway and intermodal lines by evaluating all alternatives that can be used in transportation routes for our customers, and we continue our activities in this area with lines suitable for the customer portfolio and mutual load planning.

There is a railroad that stands out on a global scale and that serious investments are made. What are your company’s evaluations and goals in this context?

OMSAN Logistics; It is the first private train operator to obtain the railway train operation authorization certificate in Turkey in 2017. In this context, we have been continuing the ore transportation project on the Demirdağ-İskenderun and Hasançelebi-Demirdağ lines since 2017, and we provide transit time advantage in transportation. In addition to this, We carry flue dust on different lines by TCDD Tasimacilik A.S. We carry out the transport of coal, petcoke, ore, clinker, flue dust and coiled sheet metal to various points in Turkey with our self-owned and leased railway fleet consisting of wagons, locomotives and containers.

As for our overseas operations, we have put into use multiple modes of transportation in our Romania-Turkey import process, which we carried out with our auto-carriers by road as of 2014. In this context, the vehicles that were shipped to the port by our auto transport wagons operating between the factory and the port in Romania were brought to Turkey by seaway in the continuation of the operation. In 2018, we broke new ground in this field by starting to use the railway alternative in the dealer distribution processes of finished vehicles with regular weekly flights. We carried out the dealer distribution of the vehicles brought to Turkey from abroad with the help of the car transportation wagons and the services organized on the Köseköy-Yenice line. In order to manage the volume increase in the finished vehicle market in 2020, we made the same model with covered wagons belonging to TCDD Taşımacılık A.Ş.

In 2020, we broke new ground in the world by transporting cars from Europe to Asia via Marmaray. Specifically for our project, we transported 200 vehicles, which we loaded from Romania with our auto transport train, to Izmit, via Marmaray, uninterruptedly and directly. Thus, we became the owner of the title of the first company in the world to transport automobiles under the sea at this depth. After this successful expedition, we continue our preparations for the organization of new international train services. In addition, considering the increasing importance of the railway, we plan to expand our service network in different geographies with our companies in France, Romania and Morocco and to increase railway transportation within the scope of our strategic goals.

With the breakthroughs we have made in recent years, we have taken railway transportation to the next level. We aim to further increase the weight of our environmentally friendly and competitive rail transports in our service portfolio, the importance of which is once again understood by providing uninterrupted transportation during the pandemic period. We also contribute to our country in terms of sustainability by making a very important contribution to the reduction of carbon emissions by expanding the railway transportation, which is also described as “Green Transportation”.

Could you share with us your views on the future of the logistics industry in the world and Turkey’s position in this area?

I think 2021 will be a year of recovery for the logistics industry. In 2021, the volume of e-commerce will increase even more. We think that consumer habits will not change in a short time, on the contrary, the increase will continue in this direction and companies that are correctly positioned in the field of e-commerce will increase their market shares. Of course, the recovery process of global trade will be directly related to the developments of the pandemic on a country basis. We also plan to further expand our e-commerce-oriented customer network. In addition, we are entering a period in which transformations in digitalization will gain speed. In the upcoming period, it has become very important for the logistics industry to transform its operations towards clean, sustainable and ecological ways of doing business.

As OMSAN Logistics, we will continue our digital, integrated, environmental and innovative projects without slowing down, grow by providing employment and focus on increasing our intermodal transportation competence even more in the upcoming period. We will continue to work with the aim of becoming a global logistics service provider by expanding our service range.

In addition, Turkey has many advantages for the logistics industry due to its location. With the automotive-focused Ro-Ro port of OYAK, which will start its operations soon, our country is getting ready to become the new center of automotive logistics. In addition, with the full opening of Marmaray to freight transportation, Turkey will also strengthen its position as the center of logistics. As OMSAN Logistics, we will be making the most of this potential offered to us by our country.

With the pandemic, it was seen that there was a shortage of warehouses with the increasing needs in global trade. How did you go about the storage systems?

Due to the serious increase in demand with the effect of the pandemic, this demand was tried to be met with urgent solutions such as increasing the area in e-commerce warehouses and additional employment. As OMSAN Logistics, we decided to expand the allocated usage areas by renewing contracts with some of our customers in different areas within the scope of storage service. In addition, the changes in trade brought not only the increase in demand for warehouses, but also the importance of delivery systems, especially in e-commerce. In this field, we revised our software and moved it to more digital platforms in order to offer integrated solutions for both storage and distribution.

In addition, the realization of designs that will allow dynamic and fast movements has an increasing importance today. When it comes to storage, square meters are always talked about, but in fact, the main thing in our business is volume. In this sense, we have created additional volumes with conveyor systems supported by elevators to the most suitable mezzanine systems depending on the changing heights in our warehouses. In order to develop suitable solution methods with automation systems, we created the opportunity to work more closely with our suppliers and to produce different solutions together. With all these efforts, we, as OMSAN Logistics, proved once again that we are a reliable solution partner where our customers can get support in difficult times.

Can you provide information about your storage activities?

Our priorities are to analyze the needs dec and quickly within the scope of our storage activities, determine the operational requirements specific to business processes, and provide solutions with innovative technologies and our specialized team. Our services we serve companies on the basis of product, depending on the variety, appropriate storage areas to create high-power of our analysis by using conventional rack systems, narrow aisle racking systems, drive-in rack systems, mezani the-shelf systems and automation solution design storage spaces need free and bonded storages in our fields and we are making ready for use.

Again, in line with increasing needs, we are focusing on improving our operational capabilities by using unit and parcel sorter, conveyor and parcel/pallet elevator systems. We combine our handling and value-added services with our human resources, which are our most valuable asset, as well as our efficiency-increasing systems, and we bring them together with our customers.