A World Brand in Water Parks - Polin
We talked to Polin Group Brand Communication Director Şöhret Pakiş about Polin's innovative identity, its place in the sector and its contribution to the sector worldwide as a local company by using R&D techniques and technology.
First, let's get to know your company. What services does Polin Group provide to the sector?
Established in Istanbul in 1976, Polin is today a water park supplier that provides services from A to Z in the design, production, engineering and installation of water slides and water parks. It is the market leader in the global arena. Our company, which has implemented 3500 water park projects with its own brand in 108 countries, has achieved many innovations in the global water park sector with its innovative, high quality and technology leadership vision. Today, Polin's signature is found in the largest and award-winning water parks of many countries and the continent. 100% of a value that we produce within ourselves; we are proud to be ranked number one in the world as a brand originating from our country, with our own idea, our own design, our own engineering and workforce.
Today, Polin carries out all its production in its 35,000 m² factory, which is the world's largest water slide production facility, with an understanding of superior quality. Our company has the highest production capacity in the world among water slide manufacturers.
We maintain our name as the "technology leader" in the sector, not only in the design of water slides, but also with the innovations we offer in water slide production technologies. For example, we changed the production technology in water slides globally. Since 2006, Polin has started to produce its slides with RTM (Resin Transfer Molding) closed mold composite production technology, which has important advantages such as glossy surfaces on both sides and smooth, more durable but lighter products with excellent visuals. This technology is the most advanced technique in slide production. Polin thus became the first and only water slide manufacturer to use this production technique.
What changes have occurred in your operations during the pandemic process? Can we get information about your new applications?
The water parks industry is a constantly evolving industry. Innovation is indispensable. While doing our slide design work, we look at what the guests who come to the water park want. We even did a market research about it. We encountered the following results: First, they want exciting, heart-wrenching slides. Second, they want interactive slides; they want to share the experience there with their spouses, children, siblings and friends. Third, they want themed slides. They want the slides to tell them stories. Fourth, they want high capacity slides. For this reason, we have designed slides where 4 or 6 people can slide at the same time.
Although we are facing a situation that affects the whole world, we continued our work without slowing down by taking our precautions to the maximum. We have completed 57 different projects in 4 different continents around the world. As always, we continued to add innovations to our sector and brought two different water slide production technologies and two different water slides together with the sector. In this process, we implemented Glassy, the world's first completely transparent composite water slide, which we launched at the world's largest amusement parks fair IAAPA Expo in 2018. We have completed our first project with our UTexture technology, which offers unlimited pattern options. Apart from these, we brought together our Wonder Flux slide, which increases the experience with visual effects during the slide, by integrating technology, and the Stingray water slide, which is a new and unique design in itself, inspired by nature. For us, we can say that it has been a process in which good developments have taken place and we have added new ones to our successes.
Could you tell us about your R&D activities? Within the scope of your R&D activities, is there a new product that you have introduced to the market in the last year?
Since its establishment, Polin has always valued R&D and innovation. Innovation is a way of life at Polin. That's why it was able to offer game-changing products in the industry like King Cobra, so it brought the closed-mould technology, which has never been done before, to the industry. In 2016, we made our official R&D Center application and in 2017 we became Turkey's 383rd R&D Center. Polin Waterparks thus became the first company in its sector to have an R&D center. Today, our R&D department is a strong department consisting of 3 units: design R&D, mechanical R&D and composite R&D. Each of them is working on different projects in their own fields. Polin has become one of the 250 companies that have invested the most in R&D published by TİM since 2016. Each year we will climb higher and higher on this list. We will continue our leadership in the water park sector with new ways, new technologies and innovations.
We do all our production in Turkey, which is very important to us. Even the companies that export in Turkey are based on imports, we export with 100% Turkish raw materials here, with our own design power and our own engineers, and we do this in the most difficult geographies of the world. We will continue to offer new products and technologies to the sector every year with our R&D studies.
Could you share your expectations for the 2022 season?
As a global player in the industry, we are positioning our efforts in this direction to maintain our position as innovation and technology leadership. Our 44-year industry history and the implementation of 3500 projects in 109 different countries have given us unparalleled business technological expertise. The only thing that hasn't changed in this whole process has been the priority Polin gives to meeting customer needs. Therefore, we have considered our future plans without ignoring this priority. Our current and future predictions and the opinions of our customers point to two important global developments in our industry: To produce integrated solutions for all needs from A to Z, and to offer new, high adrenaline products to the industry. We aim to maintain our leadership and initiative in both areas in the coming years.
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