Küçükpazarlı Aerospace (KPA) will Increase Its Market Share in American Continent with Its Branch Opened in the United States
Küçükpazarlı Aerospace (KPA), which started its operations in OSTİM in 1975, today takes part in 21 different aerospace projects in an area of approximately 70000 m2 with a staff of 450 people in 8 different locations successfully continues to produce a total of 1400 different structural and critical parts which are very few companies can produce worldwide and delivers average of 1 million parts annually. Today, KPA serves as a subcontractor for many important projects such as AIRBUS A320, A330, A350, A380, A400M, Bell 429, BOIENG B737, B747, B777, BOMBARDIER CS100, CS300, DAHER A330, SAFiRAN H160, H170, BAYKAR AKINCI, AKSUNGUR, KIZILELMA, TUSAŞ (TAI) ANKA, ATAK, HÜRKUŞ, HÜRJET, GÖKBEY and NATIONAL COMBAT AIRCRAFT (KAAN). In addition, the production and final assembly of the SIKORSKY T-70 tail cone, which is the biggest component produced in Turkey outside of TUSAŞ (TAI), was also carried out by KPA. In the past years, KPA has also delivered many critical structural parts for AGUSTA, COUGAR and LOCKHEED MARTIN F-35 projects.
We listened to CEO Taha KÜÇÜKPAZARLI and Corporate Strategy and Business Development Manager Uğur AYDIN about KPA’s activities from past to present and its new investment plans.
Taha KÜÇÜKPAZARLI: KPA is the leader of the sector in structural parts production with more than 70 CNC machining centers, 50 of which are 5-axis, lathes and CMM measuring devices with precision machining capabilities and capacity from 1 mm to 15 meters.
KPA manufactures critical components for the world’s leading aviation companies, called Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). Today, we manufacture critical parts for BOEING, AIRBUS, BELL, BOMBARDIER, DAHER and SAFRAN. With its successful infrastructure that carries out many important and critical processes such as quality management process, measurement techniques and design improvement and engineering studies carried out to reduce part processing times in the most accurate way, KPA is the second company in Turkey after TUSAŞ (TAI) to reach the level of able to work directly with AIRBUS and the Detail Part Manufacturer (DPM) status after long inspection processes.
If you work for the aerospace industry you can never compromise on your quality and on-time delivery performance. KPA is a reliable partner for long-term contracts, especially for European and US customers, with its cost-effective production processes, high quality and delivery scores. Currently, we provide 30% of our total income through exports.
Of course, our biggest motivation is to keep up with change and constantly invest in our work. Because the industry does not stand still. There needs to be at least 5 years between us and the one behind. Therefore, we need to constantly invest in our work and our system. Being a subsystem designer today is not an easy job. Our biggest desire is to produce the fuselage sections of aircraft in KPA facilities as end-item products. We share this desire with our customers, so we are very brave in this regard. Yes, as KPA, we can produce big-sized parts, but we also want to do the big assemblies of the parts we produce in our own facilities. We aim to reach 1500 people and a turnover of 100 Million USD in 10 years.
As part of our strategic investments we opened a branch, KPA USA Inc. in Texas, USA in mid-2024 in order to both strengthen our connections with our existing customers and to gain new customers, and we entrusted Uğur Aydın with this pivotal role in the United States, recognizing his engineering expertise and proven abilities in project management within the defense and aerospace industry. As the Corporate Strategy and Business Development Manager of our company, his knowledge and experience in these fields position him to lead this critical expansion effort.
Uğur AYDIN: “KPA is a company that has made a name for itself with its investments, quality certificates, approvals and production infrastructure in the aerospace industry.
The demand for aircraft production, which has increased much more than expected after the Covid-19 pandemic experienced worldwide, has caused disruptions in the supply chain of many OEM companies. KPA's new facility investments over the years have brought the ability to offer end-item products to customers rather than parts production. Today, KPA is a company that can perform high precision machining using superior engineering techniques to produce parts with complex geometry at tight tolerances, surface treatment, heat treatment and assembly processes entirely in-house. With its 50 years of engineering and production experience, knowledge and high-tech machinery and equipment especially for the precision machining of big-sized parts, KPA can offer end-item products to its customers by creating cost-effective solutions together with continuous improvement studies.
In order to do business abroad, being close to customers and being able to quickly respond to their questions or problems has great importance. Especially to do business with the American continent, this issue becomes even more important due to the time differences with Turkey. Explaining your capabilities in production and engineering to customers face to face and working together on technical details increases the potential of earning work packages.
After KPA USA Inc. was established, we held meetings with many companies and organizations in the USA in a short period of time such as 6 months and completed our application processes in order to work together. As a result of these meetings, we signed a direct contract with BOEING which we have been producing through TUSAS (TAI) so far, for the production of critical end-item structural parts. We will carry out all the production processes for BOEING from material supply to finished product delivery within KPA facilities. We will also provide detailed information on this subject in the coming days. We have also completed our application processes to receive direct work packages from US government organizations in the defense and aerospace industry.
We are in contact with many companies in the US such as aircraft and helicopter manufacturers and big-sized structural parts producers. We believe that we will collaborate with these companies in the coming days. Our aim is to further expand our customer network in the American continent, grow our business and make new investments in the coming years to carry out production and especially final assembly processes in the American continent
