1968 - Yunus Büyükkuşoğlu establishes Farplas Automotive Spare Parts Sales Company, as one of the pioneers in the automotive industry in Turkiye.
About Farplas Automotive
We are a full system solutions partner for the automotive industry, striving for excellence in the manufacturing and development of innovative polymer systems.
Farplas researches, develops, and manufactures superior automotive polymer systems, provides innovative solutions, and implements state-of-the-art technologies to make mobility safer, reliable, affordable, and efficient.
We have complete in-house capabilities to deliver fully integrated solutions worldwide and an efficient human-machine interface to achieve excellent results. Manufacturing and total quality management at Farplas is based on the JKK (Ji Kotei Kanketsu) principle, which means “take pride in what you do” in Japanese. Hence, all our team members strive to achieve quality during production and not through post-quality processes. The JKK mentality, our work culture, and the IATF 16949 automotive quality management system enable us to operate at the top level of automotive requirements.
Our transformative mindset and Kaizen culture help us develop solutions for future mobility challenges and achieve cost competitiveness, operational excellence, and customer satisfaction.
FARPLAS WORLDWIDE
One of Turkiye’s top 250 industrial companies, Farplas has been the solution partner of automotive industry leaders for more than 50 years. With an annual revenue of 130M, we operate in 5 countries with 3 R&D and technology centers, 6 production facilities, and 1,800 employees. Farplas is one of Turkishtimes magazine’s “Top 10 companies with the most R&D investment in the automotive industry in Turkiye in 2020.”
- 5 Countries
- 1800 Employees
- 7 Plants
- 4 R&D – Technical Centers
HISTORY
From spare parts sales in 1968 to a world-class automotive design, manufacturing, and
technology company today, discover our inspiring story.
1974 - Building on the success of its automotive spare parts sales, Farplas begins spare parts production, transitioning from sales to manufacturing.
1983 - Fifteen years after being established as a family business, Farplas takes its first step towards creating a professionally managed corporate structure.
1991 - Farplas establishes its first production facility in Avcılar, Istanbul, Turkiye
1996 - Farplas expands outside automotive manufacturing and enters the home appliances market, establishing a plant in the Gebze Organized Industrial Zone (GOSB).
1998 - Farplas' home appliances business grows exponentially, and the company decides to spin it off under the brand, Farel. The home appliances business continues growing, and Farel builds a factory in the Çerkezköy Organized Industrial Zone, 90 kilometers from Istanbul.
2003 - Farplas partners with full-service German automotive supplier Hymer-Leichtmetallbau GmbH and establishes a joint venture, Farhym, in Ankara, Turkiye. This JV diversifies Farplas' product range by adding "complete bus ceiling systems" to its portfolio and becomes one of its most successful products.
2004 - Farplas continues its growth in automotive manufacturing and establishes T1, its first facility in the TAYSAD Organized Industrial Zone, the automotive manufacturing hub of Turkiye.
2005 - As Farplas transforms into a full-service automotive supplier, it launches its own design company, Fardizayn, in Gebze Technopark.
2005 - Farplas joins hands with German automotive supplier giant, MAHLE GmbH, to produce air filter systems under the brand, Mahle Farplas.
2006 - In a strategic move to grow its commercial vehicle interiors business, Farplas acquires Öncü Inc., a leading supplier for Polyurethane, extrusion, and thermoforming systems for the commercial vehicle segment.
2006 - The Büyükkuşoğlu family opens Turkiye's first luxury art boutique hotel, Casa Dell'Arte, in the popular beach town in Bodrum, displaying their eclectic and expansive art collection.
2007 - Farplas expands its automotive manufacturing footprint with T2 plant, its second facility in the TAYSAD Organized Industrial Zone.
2009 - With updates in Turkiye's R&D law, Farplas makes the strategic decision to expand its R&D initiatives and establishes its first R&D center, absorbing Fardizayn under it.
2009 - Farplas' first R&D center obtains authorization from Turkiye's Ministry of Industry and Technology and becomes a government-certified R&D center.
2011 - Farplas enters into a joint venture with Aeroklas Thailand and establishes Faraero in Kocaeli, Turkiye, to develop and manufacture Turkiye's first local loadliners and bedliners based on HDPE Thermoforming technology for the automotive industry.
2012 - The Farplas R&D center receives the "Best R&D Center Performance Award" in the automotive supplier industry from Turkiye's Ministry of Industry and Technology.
2012 - Farplas launches "The Art Department" initiative to nurture new contemporary art in Turkiye by supporting emerging artists and promoting local and international cultural exchange.
2013 - Twenty-two years after opening its first establishment, Farplas consolidates all of its automotive operations in Gebze, celebrates the opening of T3, its third factory in the TAYSAD Organized Industrial Zone, and retires its "veteran" Avcılar plant.
2013 - Farplas’ President, Ahu Büyükkuşoğlu Serter, establishes the Arya Women Investment Platform (WIP). Arya WIP is a collaborative intelligence platform that empowers female leadership and supports female entrepreneurs with investment, training, events, mentoring, and consultancy programs.
2014 - As a part of its future mobility strategy, Farplas takes its first step into the CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electrified) technologies and establishes Comodif, a technology start-up enabling connected mobility through its advanced platform solutions.
2014 - Eight years after its acquisition, Öncü Inc. launches a corporate restructuring and changes its name to Farform Automotive.
2014 - Farplas' board of directors establishes Fark Holding, bringing all of the Büyükkuşoğlu family's brands and companies under one roof to create a multinational, multi-industry conglomerate.
2014 - Fark Holding acquires Hecha, a Turkish cast iron cookware brand.
2015 - To expand its operations into new fields, Farel enters into a joint venture with Wirthwein AG, a German manufacturer of plastic-based components worldwide.
2016 - After completing its corporate restructuring process, Farform Automotive moves to Gölcük and starts operating together with Faraero in their new factory, which is strategically positioned near the Ford plant.
2016 - Fark Holding establishes a corporate venture capital and private equity arm, F+ Ventures, to search and make strategic investments in the mobility ecosystem.
2016 - Farplas launches T4, a logistics facility in the TAYSAD Organized Industrial Zone.
2017 - After several years of resident engineering, Farplas decides to operate in the region permanently and opens its Asia Technical Center in South Korea.
2017 - Fark Holding launches its second R&D center within Farel to further strengthen its leading position in the home appliances market.
2017 - Farplas receives the " İnovaLIG Innovation Strategy Winner" award from the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM).
2018 - Casa Dell'Arte expands internationally and opens its second hotel, Casa Dell'Arte Club House, in Lisbon, Portugal.
2019 - Farplas establishes its first international production service for Renault Slovenia through a license partner in Croatia.
2019 - Fark Holding embarks on a new journey and creates Fark Labs as its innovation and transformation hub to build a "Better Future Together," fusing new generation mobility, transformation, and group strategy activities under one roof.
2019 - Fark Labs obtains official R&D center status from Turkiye's Ministry of Industry and Technology, becoming the third R&D center within Fark Holding.
2019 - Fark Holding continues expanding its R&D activities by establishing its fourth R&D facility, this time within Farform.
2020 - Fark Labs spins off micro-mobility infrastructure-as-a-service solution provider DUCKT, a start-up born, incubated, and accelerated internally.
2020 - Farplas and Fark Labs expand to Europe, opening the European Technical Center in Paris, France.
2020 - Fark Labs is registered as an official organizing partner of BIGG, the entrepreneurship program of TÜBİTAK (the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkiye).
2020 - Fark Labs opens its second hub in Ankara inside the technopark at Middle East Technical University, Turkiye's top-ranking international research university.
2021 - Farplas expands its international manufacturing footprint with a new plant in Romania, FSS (Farplas Smart Solutions), a joint venture with a trusted Romanian automotive supplier Delta Invest.
2021 - Farplas further extends its global manufacturing presence in Asia by opening a plant in Thailand in partnership with Faraero Thailand, which becomes Farplas' seventh plant.
2021 - After years of meticulous R&D and business success in lighting products, Farplas forms a separate business unit as 'Farplas Lighting' to transform the legacy lighting business into a new-age electronic vehicle interior system.
2021 - Farplas, invested 2.5 million Euros in Büyütech, which developed Turkey’s first domestic smart camera.
2022 - Farplas, through its venture capital firm, F+ Ventures, invested in Saykal Elektronics.
VALUES
We live, collaborate, and communicate by these five principles. They keep us focused on what matters. As we express ourselves with our values, a more significant “we” emerges, and the rules of the game change.
People are our greatest asset.
Persistence is our attitude.
Purpose is our driving force.
Progress is our daily dose.
Passion is our energy source.
CORPORATE VISION
The path to a better future
As a company that never stops reinventing itself, we keep up with global mobility trends and carve out a new space within them that aligns with our core values. As such, in the next decade, we are exploring innovative solutions in material science, embedded electronics, connectivity, electrification, micro-mobility, autonomous driving, and vision systems.
Building empowerment through autonomy, we cultivate a People in Charge philosophy. Our goal is to build a better future with our agile, lean, multi-skilled, and multi-cultural teams through collaboration. Promoting an opportunistic and entrepreneurial mindset allows us to be more creative and innovative.
Progress with Digitalization is a must to enable future-readiness. We continuously optimize our knowledge management, digitalized processes, and real-time data analytics to accelerate Farplas’ digital capabilities.
Growth Persistence inspires us to work toward a unified purpose to expand our reach, nurture new ventures and enrich our customer base.
Our Passion for Technology ensures that we stay relevant and competitive as the automotive industry undergoes a fundamental transformation driven by shifting consumer preferences. We focus on developing advanced manufacturing, advanced engineering, and new industrial material and chemical technologies. We aim to produce next-generation products, especially in the micro-mobility and EV markets.
Our Common Purpose is to expand our ecosystem through the Fark Labs network, our incubated startups, and our venture capital arm, F+ Ventures.
We aim to benefit from the global ecosystem, advance our know-how and develop custom-defined accumulated data in partnership with our group companies through technological and industrial partnerships with stakeholders, global leaders, and strategic acquisitions.
LEADERSHIP
AHU BÜYÜKKUŞOĞLU SERTER President
DENİZ BÜYÜKKUŞOĞLU Vice President
ÖMER BURHANOĞLU Fark Holding CEO & Executive Board Member
EMİN ATAÇ Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
AYKUT BAŞOL Head of Operations
ALİ İNAMLIK Head of Finance
ÖZLEM AKKOÇ Head of Human Resources
MUSTAFA KEMAL GÜNGÖR Head of Quality
TOLGA YALGI Head of Commercial
GOKHAN TASAR Romania – Plant Manager
HYUNKI JUNG South Korea – Country Manager
SURENDRAN RAMANNAIDU Thailand – Plant Manager
CUSTOMERS
We partner with major global automotive OEMs.
SUSTAINABILITY
Farplas is a proud participant of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. Sustainable action is an integral part of everything we do. We believe that making a positive impact on society, environment, and the world is the essence of a successful business.
We are committed to aligning our operations, strategies, and policies with the Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact in human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption. By establishing a culture of integrity, we reflect the basic concepts of fairness, honesty, and respect for people and the environment in our business actions.
Human Rights
Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
Principle 2: Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.
Labour
Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
Principle 4: The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor;
Principle 5: The effective abolition of child labor; and
Principle 6: The elimination of discrimination with respect to employment and occupation.
Environment
Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
Principle 8: Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
Principle 9: Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally-friendly technologies.
Anti-Corruption
Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
Farplas also contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
For over ten years, Farplas has been leading several government-funded research projects to build sustainable new practices for the automotive sector, from recycling to bio-materials. In 2019, we updated our sustainability targets and added “circular economy” to our primary research and development goals. We actively participate in several circular economy-related projects in Horizon 2020, the EU’s flagship research and innovation program. In addition, our team is the lead on one of these projects, REVOLUTION.
Committed to leaving a lasting positive legacy, we operate responsibly, ethically, and transparently to build a better sustainable future together.
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY
As a company that strives to have a positive social impact, our mission has always been to enrich communities and make people’s lives better. We fund educational and healthcare initiatives, invest in programs that promote women’s empowerment, and support arts & culture. With all our social responsibility projects, our Founder & Honorary President Yunus Büyükkuşoğlu was on the list of Capital magazine’s “Turkiye’s 50 Most Charitable Leaders” consecutively in 2017, 2018, and 2019.
Farplas is the main sponsor of the Arya Women Investment Platform (WIP) since its founding in 2013. Established by our President Ahu Büyükkuşoğlu Serter, Arya WIP is a collaborative intelligence platform that empowers female leadership and supports female entrepreneurs with investment, training, events, mentoring, and consultancy programs.
Discover how we are making a difference in our community: