Turkish director to manage Chrysler factory in US

Akın Aydemir, industrial operations director of Tofaş Turkish Automobile Factory Co. Inc., will be the director of the Sterling Heights factory in which Fiat Chrysler will invest about $1.5 billion.

Tofaş, one of the rarest factories in the world, which has the "Gold Level" in the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) "World Class Production" program, has started exporting its directors to the U.S. as well as automobiles. According to Milliyet daily, Aydemir, who is currently the industrial operations director of Tofaş, has been appointed director of the FCA's Sterling Heights plant, one of the most important facilities in the U.S.

Tofaş, which exports the Doblo model produced in Turkey to the U.S. under the brand name "Ram" and has increased the market share of the brand in Europe by developing Fiat's Egea project from scratch to a great extent, has become one of the most important facilities in the FCA world.

Aydemir, one of the architects of both this achievement and Tofaş Bursa factory's rise to "Gold Level" in the FCA's World Class Production program, will continue his achievements in the U.S. Aydemir, who will start as of May, will take over the management of the region's largest investment to be made by one company at one time.

The facility will be transformed into a fully commercial vehicle production center after the Chrysler 200 model, whose production is still ongoing, bids farewell to the assembly lines. Here, a new generation of the "Ram 1500" pickup, one of the most popular vehicles of the U.S., will begin to be manufactured.

Stressing that Tofaş does not export only cars and light commercial vehicles to different countries of the world, CEO Cengiz Eroldu noted that Turkish managers are also appointed to important positions within the FCA. He stated that today TOFAŞ produces seven different brands and exports to 80 countries at the same time, and continues to export Turkish managers to different positions in different countries under the umbrella of the FCA.