Tofaş is a leading automotives manufacturer whose vision is to create the best value and mobility solutions for its customers and whose aim is to improve the quality of customers’ lives through its products and services. Tofaş’s core strategic R&D and innovation goals are to develop customer-focused innovative vehicles for a market shaped by sustainability technologies, to be a globally competitive product and technology development center, and to make effective use of digitalization to increase the value proposition and total value delivered to customers. Tofaş is also constantly expanding the scope of its operations to meet the needs of the global automotives software market.
TOFAŞ R&D CENTER
Set up in 1994, the Tofaş R&D Center was awarded Ministry of Industry and Technology R&D center certification in 2008. The center’s research work is conducted in line with the company’s strategic priorities and focuses on three overlapping areas:
The goal of the Tofaş R&D Center is to be a globally competitive product & technology development hub. The center focuses especially on developing and launching new products and on improving existing ones in line with markets’ needs and expectations.
As one of Stellantis’s leading R&D centers, Tofaş R&D is also considered to be the best automotives R&D center in Turkey. The center has all the knowledge, skills, and technical resources needed to develop a completely new vehicle from scratch. Its owner, Tofaş, budgets more for R&D than any other company in Turkey. Tofaş R&D Center’s assets include 20,110 m2 of lab and office space and access to a diversified global network of outstanding high-tech vehicle-development resources. At end-2022, the center had a staff of over 600 including 482 engineers and 159 people awarded master’s or doctor’s degrees.
Tofaş R&D is also an engineering export hub for global product projects. Besides working on vehicles manufactured by Tofaş, the center’s engineers play an active role in product-development projects for Stellantis brands and models produced in different parts of the world. As Tofaş’ responsibility in Stellantis product projects continues to grow, the center’s engineering exports make an increasingly greater contribution to Turkey’s economy, industry, and R&D expertise. As part of Stellantis’s strategic plan, Tofaş is also taking on a greater role in the software development of Stellantis vehicles in Turkey and globally expanding its activities in the automotives software industry in order to meet the needs of customers around the world.
To this end, Tofaş will be looking to develop its competencies in the areas of connectivity, infotainment, powertrains, control software, and advanced driver assistance systems; to expand its R&D team by including engineering firms and freelance software developers; to increase R&D exports by working with a much wider R&D ecosystem; and to contribute to the development of Turkey’s overall engineering ecosystem.
Tofaş R&D İzmir Branch
Tofaş R&D Center’s newly-created Product-Development & Software branch commenced operations in İzmir Institute of High Technology’s Technopark İzmir Software Center in 2022.
Through its new İzmir-based R&D branch, Tofaş plans to expand the scope of its automotive software development operations so as to undertake increasingly more responsibilities in such areas as designing components and systems for different brands and models, carrying out virtual & physical verifications, and prototyping across the entire Stellantis ecosystem.
Tofaş R&D İzmir will be working on calibration & safety issues, data-science & AI-based intelligent vehicle architecture, autonomous & driverless vehicle solutions, connectivity solutions, automotive cybersecurity, and management & optimization algorithms in the provision of fleet services.
At a time when the place and importance of software in product-development processes are becoming increasingly greater, Tofaş envisions addressing the global demand for automotive software by becoming an integral part of Stellantis’s software-based growth strategy through its İzmir R&D branch while also continuing to respond to the software needs of its home market.
Investments
As of end-2022, the total value of the Tofaş R&D Center’s investments in design and testing equipment for use in the areas of vehicle concept, styling, bodywork, interiors, suspension systems, engines, emissions, vibration, and acoustics amounted to more than EUR 58 million. R&D expenditure in 2022 was TL 671 million.
In the conduct of its 2022 operations, the Tofaş R&D Center was intensively engaged in model-improvement projects for the Fiorino, Doblò, and Egea lines. 350 of the Tofaş R&D Center’s engineers are currently involved in the product-development processes for a variety of vehicles for other members of the Stellantis Group.
Continuing to prioritize environment-related investments, Tofaş allocates 22% of its research & development budget for emissions-reduction projects. Tofaş is committed to developing vehicles with lower emissions and vehicles that run on alternative fuels to improve the efficiency of users’ transportation and distribution operations and make the mobility experience more enjoyable for everyone.
(TL million) |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
R&D expenditure |
244 |
355 |
575 |
882 |
671 |
Product Development and Manufacturing Technologies
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. 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’s focus on environmental sustainability addresses such issues as vehicle electrification and reducing vehicles’ weights and energy consumption. Studies on productivity give priority to digital optimization of processes and low-cost automation in all areas.
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 marshaling 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 in the last fifteen years.
When developing products and processes, the Tofaş R&D Center engages with stakeholders in different sectors so as to ensure that the projects on which it is working are conducted effectively and that any social and/or environmental issues which may arise are dealt with. With the benefit of European Union and TÜBİTAK support and the business opportunities created by both platforms, Tofaş develops high added-value, innovative, and ecofriendly projects. With the addition of 13 EU research projects that were approved in 2021 and 2022, the number of such projects in which the Tofaş R&D Center has taken or is taking part reached 31 as of end-2022. The number of international project partners with which the center has worked in the conduct of these projects is now more than 260.
Intellectual Property Rights
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 71 patents were submitted in 2022.
INNOVATION & DIGITALIZATION
Tofaş’s strategic priorities and practices are informed by technological developments in light of changing market and customer needs. The company regards intelligent-factory solutions that make use of productivity-enhancing digital optimization so as to constantly improve its competitive strength as one of its strategic priorities.
Investments and Projects
During 2022 Tofaş completed a total of 364 projects, of which 1,500 were associated with digitalization solutions. Foremost among the digitalization projects on which the company focused last year were those that involved such technologies as Internet of Things (IoT), advanced data analytics & machine learning, image processing, collaborative robots (cobots), and robotic process automation (RPA).Much of the production machinery and equipment currently in use at Tofaş is already connected to an IoT platform that makes it possible for their critical parameters to be monitored in real time. The total number of projects that facilitate early problem-detection & intervention at Tofaş reached 761 in 2022 with the addition of 167 new ones during the year.
In order to expand employees’ data competencies and to support the proliferation of their data-focused analytical projects, big-data backbone accessibility has been increased so that they may tap its resources to develop analytical scenarios of their own into which they may incorporate data from both internal and external sources. The addition of self-service analytical products and rapid software-development methods such as low-code/no-code tools to existing infrastructure has been accelerated.
During 2022, various modernization projects related to Tofaş’s commercial operations and production-management systems were deployed.
Investments capable of advancing the robotic-transformation of basic infrastructure and office processes have been accelerated and are now at the point at which they are capable of supporting operational agility.
In the period ahead, Tofaş will continue to take a benefit-driven approach when dealing with digitalization projects and will be focusing on carrying out more projects with higher added value, collaborating more effectively with external resources, investing in the digital competencies of its employees, and developing new services and partnerships through an integrated connectivity infrastructure.
Talent & Ecosystem Development
Two important elements of any successful organizational implementation of digitalization and innovation are firstly the propagation of digital and innovative mindsets and competencies throughout the organization and secondly the expansion of the ecosystem so as to engage all appropriate solution partners. As a component of its corporate entrepreneurship approach, Tofaş regularly engages and works together with other Koç Group companies, NGOs, universities, incubation centers, and angel investment groups.
Expertise domains were established and tasked with guiding the acquisition and implementation of such fundamental technologies as data science, machine learning, IoT, and RPA. Work has begun on developing a platform management system for ecosystem expansion. Under the online training and full-time consultancy Data Science Program that was initiated in 2019, the number of Tofaş personnel with AI competencies reached 124 in 2022 while 30 data science projects were also submitted. Under the auspices of Tofaş Academy, 35 Tofaş employees are taking part in IoT training and 158 are receiving training so that they will be able to support RPA program-related process analysis and the implementation of new RPA projects.
Tofaş seeks to foster technology-literacy and digital-transformation culture both within the company and throughout its value-creation chain. For this purpose, Tofaş Academy, working together with Tofaş technology partners, has developed a program that turns digital transformation into a cultural journey whose aim is to support the spread and adoption of technology literacy and digital culture. Individualized, classroom, and video training resources are made available under this program. During 2022, 568 field personnel received such training.
Under the Optimus initiative that was launched in 2020 to support Tofaş employees in the development of digitalization-related projects, 181 Tofaş personnel led a total of 364 projects during 2022. Originally conceived as a factory-related undertaking, the success of the Optimus initiative led to the expansion of its scope so as to include quality-control and supply-chain functions as well. Energy and supply chain-related Optimus project numbers are expected to increase in 2023.
Corporate Intrapreneurship
Tofaş conducts corporate intrapreneurship programs with the aim of supporting employees in their efforts to acquire new competencies and to make use of innovative methods to come up with creative ideas capable of being developed as projects.
Developed inhouse by Tofaş and bringing connected-vehicle technology to its class for the first time in Turkey, Fiat Connect employs remote-access technology that transforms drivers’ habits and their interactions with their vehicles.
Originally introduced in 2018 as both a web and a mobile-based support service, Fiat Connect involves the installation of a component that is attached to a vehicle’s electronic control unit. Once activated, Fiat Connect makes it easy for drivers to keep track and manage all the details of every aspect of their vehicle (including service history) and also to receive personalized notifications of special campaigns and reminders about periodic maintenance.
Over the years since its original introduction, Fiat Connect’s capabilities have continued to be expanded with the incorporation of new features such as Accident Black Spot”, “Child Alarm”, “Gamified Fuel Economy”, and “Android Auto Integration” in addition to individualized comprehensive automobile insurance policies based on driving habits.
In 2022 a mobile payments feature was added to Fiat Connect under an agreement with Mastercard. This feature allows drivers to pay for fuel at Opet stations through Fiat Connect. In keeping with its goal of making connectivity technology as widely available as possible, Tofaş made Fiat Connect standard equipment across the entire Fiat Egea family last year.
Between 2018 and 2022, Fiat Connect came to the aid of Tofaş customers at times when they were most in need of support by proactively summoning ambulances in 62 incidents.
Committed to the development of smart vehicles that provide drivers with service and support in the areas of safety, comfort, and environmental-awareness, Tofaş intends to continue adding increasingly more safe-driving habits categories to its Fiat Connect app and to increase the number of Fiat Connect users by 2025.
