Mehmet Yildiz founded Starwood on virgin land on an industrial site in Inegöl near Bürsa, to the south of the Marmara Sea, in 1989.
The company’s early days were modest, with secondhand machinery being purchased and installed on the 180,000m2 site.
The first such line, purchased in 1981, was an 80m3/day single-opening press line and this was followed by a second line of 200m3/day, again bought secondhand.
The third plant was bought in 1987 and was also pre-owned. It had a capacity of 500m3/day.
These lines were located in Gaziantep, Istanbul and at another site in Inegöl, before the current Inegöl site was purchased.
“After that, I promised myself that there would be no more ‘old’ machinery in my company and for the last 21 years, everything has been purchased new,” said Mr Yildiz. “Also, when buying this new equipment, I always go for reputable brands and quality. Sometimes that means paying more, but I am not interested in unknown brand machinery – not even if it was to be offered free.”
The oldest plant in the Inegöl facility today dates from 1991 and is a single-opening Dieffenbacher press producing between 180 to 270m3/day of particleboard.
The wood preparation for this, and all Starwood’s panel lines, was supplied by Pallmann of Zweibrücken, Germany – a good example of Mr Yildiz’s brand loyalty and he is very enthusiastic in his endorsement of this company.
In 1994, Starwood bought the first continuous press in Turkey for project Hacih Salih (all projects are named after a member of the family and this one was named for Mehmet Yildiz’s father).
It was a 23.5m long ContiRoll from Siempelkamp of Germany and had a nominal capacity of 570m3/day, but has run at up to 1,000m3.
In 2004, project Sevim was born. This 47m ContiRoll line can run at up to 1,800m3 /day, depending on product mix.
All these lines were equipped with Pallmann wood preparation equipment.
In 2007, project Betul marked a complete change of direction for Starwood with the construction of its first line to produce MDF rather than particleboard.
Due on stream later this year, the 38.5m ContiRoll continuous press line will produce thin MDF (hence the relatively short press length).
Given Mr Yildiz’s declared loyalty to suppliers which perform well, you will not be surprised to learn that the green end is being supplied by Pallmann. The refiner is also from the same supplier and is a 54-inch unit.
It seems that one line is considered insufficient and a second MDF project will start construction this year and go into production in 2009. This will have a 55m ContiRoll press with a nominal capacity of 1,500m3/day.
This time, the Pallmann refiner will be a 62in unit and, as may be judged from the press length, the line is intended to produce thicker MDF panels.
The project does not yet have a name, because Mr Yildiz’s fifth grandchild has not yet been born but will be soon. This man’s commitment to, and pride in, his growing family is immediately evident to any visitor to his impressive office suite.
“When all this investment is complete next year, Starwood will have a production capacity of around 5,000m3 of panels a day and that will be 40% of the total Turkish panel capacity,” said Mr Yildiz proudly.
A lot of that national capacity belongs to the Yildiz family as Mehmet Yildiz’s two brothers own the two Yildiz Entegre companies in Turkey, although these are entirely separate businesses.
Starwood has chipping plants located in Balikesir and Canakkale, equipped with Pallmann machines and supplying part of the site’s wood raw material needs.
Turkey is not a country that is well endowed with indigenous wood supplies and yet it has seen dramatic growth in panel production capacity nationally in recent years. I put that point to Mr Yildiz.
“It is true that there is not enough wood supply in the country, but if only we could reduce the amount of wood consumed by households for fuel, and increase the use of natural gas, the situation would be better,” said Mr Yildiz. “The wood currently used for domestic heating etcetera amounts to 20 billion m3, equivalent to 10 billion tonnes, and if we [the country] supplied natural gas to all of Turkey we could save logs for use in wood products,” he pointed out.
In the meantime, Starwood imports chips from the US, Canada, Brazil and South Africa, via ports on the Sea of Marmara. “And we still make particleboard competitively,” said the chief executive. “Nobody except the Turks understands Turkey – it may look like too much capacity to you, but not to me.”
Some of Starwood’s resin requirement is manufactured on site – mainly melamine for its P7 moisture resistant construction panel – and impregnating resins. The urea formaldehyde resins are bought in from Mr Yildiz’s brother’s company or another Turkish supplier, MKS.
The company exports 30% of its capacity and is able to access markets in Iraq, Iran, all Asian countries and all Turkey’s neighbouring countries, points out Mr Yildiz, who feels that western European countries have missed out on that opportunity. “Turkey is a bridge to 300 million people,” he said.
Innovative value adding
Of course, raw board is not sufficient to make money in a competitive international panel market and Starwood has recognised that – very thoroughly.
One of its most innovative approaches has been the purchase of a press line specially designed to make lightweight sandwich panels with thin particleboard or MDF faces. These will be marketed as ‘Starlight’ panels.
The press line was developed by Wemhöner of Germany and is a first for them. It was under test at the time of my visit in February.
The paper honeycomb core is bought in ‘collapsed’ and is stretched out and sprayed with hardener before being cold-pressed with the panel faces which have first had glue applied to them. This glue reacts with the hardener to produce the finished sandwich panel.
In more ‘conventional’ value-adding, Starwood has six short-cycle presses from Wemhöner and produces around 25,000 pieces of melamine-faced panels a day, representing 18% of raw board production. It also has a total of five impregnation lines, supplied by Tocchio of Italy. Some impregnated paper is sold to Yildiz Entegre and some is exported.
“As I told you, if I like a supplier, I stick with them,” said Mr Yildiz. “If they can sell to me they can sell to every manufacturer in Turkey – there are around 20 ContiRoll lines in the country and 34 Wemhöner short-cycle lines. And virtually all panel production lines have Pallmann wood preparation equipment.”
Mehmet Yildiz has mostly handed over the day-to-day running of the family business to his son Hüseyin Yildiz. Mehmet then has more time to look after his other passion – his grandchildren.
