THE TOFAŞ R&D CENTER KEEPS A CLOSE WATCH ON THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN TECHNOLOGY WHILE ALSO CONTRIBUTING DIRECTLY TO TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS ITSELF.

CONTINUOUSLY INVESTING IN INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY

Tofaş invests continuously in information and technology in order to develop innovative products and value-adding projects. It was for this reason that in 1994 the company set up its own R&D center, which was designated a formally-licensed R&D center by the Turkish Industry and Trade Ministry in 2008.

The Tofaş R&D Center seeks to contribute to the national economy by developing passenger cars and light commercial vehicles that are technologically superior and distinguished by their engineering and design details.

Equipped with everything that it needs to compete with its European peers in the areas of vehicle research and development, the center employs more than 700 people in a total of 20,110 m2 of laboratory and office space. With its high-tech laboratories and diversified range of capabilities, the Tofaş R&D Center is the only Fiat-approved research and development center serving the European market that is not located in Italy.

As of 2018, the total value of all of the design and test infrastructure investments completed at the Tofaş R&D Center in the areas of vehicles’ concept, styling, bodywork, interior design, suspension, engines, emissions, vibration, and acoustics aspects topped EUR 48 million in value.

A new R&D building that was constructed in 2018 contains office space for 150 people as well as an electrical & electronic, engine, transmission, and control systems laboratory. Work was also completed on a laboratory and analysis center that will be focusing on benchmarking and reverse engineering operations.

GREATER COMPETENCIES IN PRODUCT DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGIES

Because it integrates design processes into all of its research and development work, the Tofaş R&D Center necessarily keeps a close watch on the latest developments in technology while also contributing directly to technological progress itself. In line with the Tofaş R&D Center’s strategic objectives, the company likewise supports research projects that will lead to gains in product development and manufacturing technology knowhow. The Tofaş R&D Center possesses all of the product engineering design and analysis competencies that may be needed to completely design a vehicle from start to finish.

Tofaş’s research and development operations are informed by three fundamental and interlocking concerns: environmental sustainability, social sustainability, and competency. The Tofaş R&D center’s focus on environmental sustainability addresses such issues as vehicle electrification and reducing vehicles’ weights and energy consumption. The company regards it as one of its priorities to develop its competencies in these areas as the owner of a global R&D center in which Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ advanced engineering work takes place.

JOINT PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT COLLABORATIONS

A prerequisite for Turkey’s increasing its international visibility and viability as a product development center is an ability to simultaneously address all of the elements of the R&D value-creation chain. This is why Tofaş gives special importance to joint design and development projects, to marshalling the resources of local engineering firms, and to working together with universities. Undertaking university-industry collaboration projects in parallel with its technology-development operations, Tofaş R&D collaborated with sixteen different universities on about 130 projects between 2006 and 2018.

In the many projects that are undertaken with the support of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and of the European Union, the Tofaş R&D Center also works together with university faculty members as well as with the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Research Center and various international design centers.

Having increased the number of EU Research Projects (H2020, FP7, and Eureka) in which it is active to sixteen, Tofaş R&D also collaborates with nearly two hundred international project partners. Tofaş was the first–and is still the only–Turkish company to serve as a product technologies project leader by virtue of its involvement in the ROBO-PARTNER project that is exploring “Seamless Human-Robot Cooperation for Intelligent, Flexible and Safe Operations in the Assembly Factories of the Future”. Six H2020 projects submitted by Tofaş were accepted in 2017 and 2018.

The Tofaş R&D Center’s goal is to increase the number of patents that it applies for every year by coming up with new projects and innovative ideas that create added value. As a result of the innovative work carried out by the Tofaş R&D Center, new applications for 38 domestic and 10 international patents were submitted in 2018.