TÜVTURK and 50th anniversary of bilateral labour agreement

Munich (Pressweb) - The anniversary of the Turkish-German agreement on the recruitment of labour on 30 October is of special significance for TÜV SÜD. Vehicle inspection in the Bosporus state, now carried out at 193 test centres, has been the largest TÜV SÜD project abroad so far and is characterized by an intensive transfer of know-how and experience between Turkish and German vehicle professionals. Within the scope of this exchange of experience, vehicle inspectors from Turkey are currently witnessing vehicle testing and inspection in Germany.

How exactly is testing carried out on the roller brake tester? Which aspects of motorbikes do vehicle inspectors consider particularly important? How to best manage communication with customers on site at the test centre? This week, Baris Turan, working at TÜVTURK in Istanbul, and Olgun Öztürk from TÜVTURK in Ordu on the Turkish Black Sea coast are 'shadowing' their colleagues at the TÜV SÜD service centres in the Greater Munich region. For Olgun Öztürk, the visit is a journey to his birth country. Öztürk was born in Oberhausen. His father came to Germany in 1967 under the German-Turkish labour agreement. When Olgun Öztürk was 12 years old his family returned to Turkey.

The work experience project here in Munich, which marks TÜV SÜD's modern-day contribution to the 50th anniversary of the bilateral agreement, focuses on the exchange of practical experience on roadworthiness and exhaust emission testing for cars and motorbikes. Horst Schneider, Member of the Board of Management of TÜV SÜD, says, "Right from the start, our activities in Turkey have been accompanied by knowledge transfer in both directions which has actually intensified over the years. The project in Turkey is an important building block in TÜV SÜD's progress in internationalization, and transfer of know-how across national borders is more important than ever before."

Run by a consortium of TÜV SÜD, Doğuş Automotive and Bridgepoint, TÜVTURK has been the only organization approved to carry out periodic roadworthiness testing of vehicles in Turkey since 2009. The first test centre was put into operation in February 2008 in Elazig. The entire network, composed of over 193 service centres rounded off by 70 additional mobile test facilities, was completed in February 2009. TÜVTURK now performs over five million roadworthiness tests per year, employing around 3,000 staff. TÜVTURK has been TÜV SÜD's largest international investment project in the Mobility business segment so far.

What role do cars play for local motorists? How do mobility professionals there approach large-scale projects? Which informal hierarchies must be taken into account in decision making? These are only some of the questions that Murat Dambali, technical manager in charge of international projects at TÜV SÜD Auto Service, must answer in the initial phase of new international projects. Born in Turkey in 1965, Dambali came to Germany as a child and joined TÜV SÜD in 1995. The TÜV professional spent three and a half years in his birth country establishing the TÜVTURK structures. "Providing know-how on site and sharing it with local partners as quickly as possible" is the motto under which Dambali implements large-scale projects in countries including Russia, Brazil and South Africa.

And on the subject of providing know-how on site, one of those providing precisely that for vehicle inspections in Turkey is Mehmet Keser, head of the TÜV SÜD service centre in Binzen (Baden-Wuerttemberg). 46-year old Keser, who came to Germany in 1973, holds regular train-the-trainer programmes and completed several assignments focusing on occupational health and safety directly at the service centres in Turkey. "Our colleagues in Turkey quickly set high standards, which was quite surprising for some of our German colleagues", says Mehmet Keser. The train-the-trainer principle was also the central theme when TÜV SÜD Akademie developed its special "Car Inspector TÜVTURK" scheme for the certification of persons. In the near future, two German TÜV SÜD experts will go to Turkey to witness local vehicle inspections on the Bosporus.

"Migration of labourers from Turkey to Germany may have been reality at the beginning of the bilateral labour agreement. However, those times are gone. Today, we focus on intensive communication between skilled professionals and intercultural teamwork in a host of constellations. For TÜV SÜD, these are the keys to international success", says Horst Schneider. The 16,000 or so staff of the TÜV SÜD Group provide services at around 600 locations throughout the world, not only in Turkey but also in Thailand or Tennessee.

However, further anniversaries which TÜV SÜD celebrates this year are typically German: the 50th anniversary of the TÜV sticker, 100 years of roadworthiness testing and the 125th anniversary of the automobile. "Perhaps when the next generation celebrates the 50th anniversary of TÜVTURK, the time might have come for international vehicle inspections in accordance with a uniform standard", says Member of the TÜV SÜD Board of Management Schneider, musing over the future.