In recent years, NORM Cıvata has achieved exponential growth with accelerating export sales. This success was achieved by focusing on high-quality production, investing in technology, and building strong and sustainable relationships with customers. The company’s latest motto perfectly summarises its way of working: ‘Global scale, personal care’.
NORM Cıvata points out that this motto underlines how it is becoming a more global company, but the personalised care to its customers still remains. This understanding and attitude lies at the heart of the business.
“At NORM we have continuously moved forward with an integrated manufacturing and quality service to become a solution partner for major manufacturers and well known brands in domestic and global automotive markets – producing 50 million pieces daily,” states Chairman Fatih Uysal. “NORM continues to be a leader and pioneer in the fastener industry and we are committed to a superior quality policy and a wide product range – offering supply chain management solutions for automotive OEMs, tier 1 companies and European wholesalers.”
When it comes to high-quality products and being customer focused, Fatih is clear that NORM Cıvata makes no compromises on what he sees as the company’s greatest values. “What differentiates us from the competition is that we do all the manufacturing processes in-house: Annealing, cold forming, secondary operations, heat treatment, coating, sorting and packaging. After the production process, we are also able to apply several coatings such as Dörken, Geomet, Magni, MacDermid, Coventya, 3M, Precote, Nylok and Omnimask. In addition, 80% of our tooling is being produced in-house.”
Close to the customer
As a business NORM Cıvata is constantly looking to grow and expand its business day by day in order to be closer to its customers. “The first example was in 1998, when we established a logistic centre, Vissart Europe, in Meaux, France,” points out Fatih Uysal. “Then in 2012, we set up another logistics centre, Norm GmbH, in Krefeld, Germany, to enable us to make daily shipments, meet special packaging needs and provide an engineering service.”
Other more recent examples include Norm Fasteners Co, which was set up in 2018 to operate as a sales and logistics centre in Michigan, USA. NORM also has a new logistics centre in Poznań, Poland, and is looking to introduce a new logistics centre in Pitești, Romania, in 2020. “With these investments, we are able to serve our customers in Turkey, Germany, France, Poland, Romania and the USA,” proudly states Fatih.
While strengthening logistics, NORM Cıvata is also investing in its production capacity. Currently, the company has two production sites in İzmir and Manisa (Salihli). After considering the high demand from customers, and VW’s investment in Manisa, NORM Cıvata decided to enlarge its production site in Salihli. NORM has ongoing construction in Salihli for two plants in a total area of 22,500m2 – one plant for nut production and the other plant for coating. Moreover, over 100,000m2 was invested in as a greenfield site in Salihli.
Technology advancements
Another area where NORM Cıvata has been investing is the ‘cleanliness’ process, with the company investing in the latest technology for washing machines and laboratory equipment. “The requirements for cleanliness are getting increasingly stringent for components used in automotive, electronics and aerospace industries,” mentions Fatih. “‘Technical cleanliness’ is becoming more important in assembly processes as it helps increase performance, lower energy consumption, reduce emissions and improve safety, which is why we have been focusing on it at NORM.”
In addition, NORM Cıvata has invested in a rack dip spin coating line in its coating facility in Salihli, once again to meet customer demands in the market. “By using this system, thread damage risks are totally eliminated,” points out Fatih. “Bolts or nuts are hanged on the racks one by one and then the process starts with surface treatment, coating and then packaging. Furthermore, this facility will enable us to coat vehicle chassis parts, which are not suitable to coat by cataphoresis.”
Researching and developing
Developing its technology and innovation capacity will be NORM Cıvata’s main priorities for the future. “Our R&D investments are accelerating day-by-day, with higher R&D capability we aim to develop more patented, lighter and solid products for the future,” explains Fatih. “We are also looking to increase the number of co-design projects with our customers through our Resident Engineer Programme. Currently, we have one resident engineer working at Ford in Turkey to provide customer specific solutions in fastening. Also, our resident engineer in Germany is ready to give support to our customers when needed. We aim to develop this cooperation more to increase productivity and customer satisfaction.”
Patented products
NORM Cıvata also states that it is the first Turkish company to adopt computer-aided engineering methods for production of fasteners. Simufact finite element software is used extensively in the R&D centre to carry out activities such as product development, process improvement, die and model design and cost reduction. The main aim of R&D studies is to develop lightweight fasteners with improved fatigue and vibration resistance for automotive components. Studies also cover innovative connection solutions, micro alloyed material forging, smart bolts and non-ferrous material forging.
Amongst the unique patent products Norm Group has also developed are:
- NORMEST (Norm-Easy Self Tapping): A self-tapping bolt that demonstrates high performance in creating its own threads in the assembled part.
- NOW (Norm One Way): A bolt with a unique head form that allows the user only to tighten and not loosen the bolt.
- Fasti-NORM: A bolt that eliminates the welding process of bolt to sheet metals by means of a special head form.
- Norm-iFR: A fatigue resistant bolt with a unique thread profile.
In response to the expectations of the automotive industry, NORM Cıvata also started a government funded R&D project to produce aluminium alloy bushes. Having successfully introduced these aluminium alloy bushings, NORM has also extended its product range of male threaded fasteners and continued to improve internal threaded parts.
“All of these innovative and unique products were developed in a short period to reduce costs and increase product performance and quality for the customers. For NORM, the customers are always the driving force to create branded solutions and products.”
2020 priorities
Fatih concludes: “In 2020, we foresee that the fastener market will be stable, yet there are many new projects that we are expecting. We aim to increase our sales with these new projects thanks to increasing production capacity via new investments in Manisa. Also, we will continue to add new products to our portfolio to reach more customers. Furthermore, strengthening our presence in the US market is still one of our main priority areas.”
Will joined Fastener + Fixing Magazine in 2007 and over the last 12 years has experienced every facet of the fastener sector – interviewing key figures within the industry and visiting leading companies and exhibitions around the globe. Will manages the content strategy across all platforms and is the guardian for the high editorial standards that the brand is renowned.
