
Digital Engineering continues its many years of experience in the sector as a solution partner to our companies in the sector with the Oliptek brand. We talked to Oliptek managing partner Özcan KARS about their work.
The importance of led technology of software and automation needed by our country's lighting sector has increased together. The digital cities project has become indispensable for cities. In addition, the changing urbanism of lighting products and the burden of energy costs and the demand for smart products have prompted our companies to take new initiatives in this regard.
Who is Mr. Özcan, what is your story of starting the lighting industry, the point you have come to in the sector, your experiences and your Oliptek team position? Can you briefly mention it?
I completed my bachelor's degree in Economics and my master's degree in Audit. My other sons are Musa Karslıoglu electronics and Engin Belen is a computer engineer.
Digital Engineering started its activities in 2008 as a combination of electronic engineering and computer engineering. With me taking over the management of the company, our company has become in a position to manage all its strategic areas with its own partners. As such, Mr. Musa took responsibility for his profession of electronic R&D and production, and Mr. Engin again assumed responsibility for his own profession, software department and software R&D. Since my profession is economics and management, I took charge of the management of the company and the responsibility of finance. Thus, our company was established with a solid business department.
Since its establishment, our company has become an engineering company that produces various hardware using electronic and computer software. Digital Engineering, which produces all its software and hardware with its own R&D team, came by producing domestic LED screens, centrally controlled information screens, meter systems, turnkey products and services of software and hardware with competition programs infrastructure, parking guidance (full-empty) systems, electronic industrial products and software for the infrastructure of the advertising sector. Especially since 2017, we have narrowed down our fields of study to focus on certain areas, bringing our products and services together to two main headings and creating the OLIPTEK brand. The first is media fasat lighting systems, which have been very popular in recent years, and the second is smart wired or wireless automation systems.

With the development and opening of the Oliptek lighting industry to the world, it focused especially on smart solutions for value-added products that are the biggest need of this sector.
Who is your goal in the value you add to the lighting industry with your products and how do you provide this value?
The lighting industry has experienced a change in the transition from conventional lighting products to LED lighting products. This manifested itself both in the output of light and in the shape and aesthetics of the product. In the past, a mold could be produced for 20-30 years. Now special products are made for every place, every geography, every project. That's not enough anymore. In the next step, people also want to control lighting in the digitalized world. We produce products to manage lighting elements to lighting manufacturers. Lighting manufacturers integrate our OLIPTEK BRANDED products into their own products and make them value-added products.

We work here in two ways. First, we are involved in the product development process. For example, if you want to use Lighting manufacturers who produce street lamps develop their products with our automation and smart systems and produce them with us.
Our second method is; If the company's product is ready and wants to add an automation system to this product, we provide kits that will be placed directly in the product if there is room in the customer's product. If there is no space in the product, we also provide kits that can be used on it or inside the pole. So they're directly involved in the smart system. As it is known, products with moisture sockets began to become widespread. With nema socket, the obligation to work with another company for automation is eliminated. Accordingly, the lighting company produces and sells its own product or works with the automation company. At this point, both companies (lighting and automation) can work together, produce separately and sell independently. If the customer wants, he or she can buy these products separately and combine them on the product themselves.

Another issue is that we produce DMX end unit and DMX Master controls for both indoor and outdoor products. Manufacturers can integrate our DMX solutions into their finished products, whether they are producing with the product or not.
What are the factors that separate OLIPTEK from their peers?
Based on smart city lighting, it is primarily uninterrupted communication, which is a must-have feature of wireless products. Our wireless products both operate very decisively and communicate from a distance well above the usual distances. With our two-way communication feature, our products can be tracked instantly online. Thanks to the instant bi-directional exchange of product information, you can be instantly informed about both fault situations and other behaviors of your products in the field. In addition, thanks to the fact that our smart city lighting products are very small, they can be easily mounted on every pole in every fixture. Again, these products have an automation system that can adapt to all types of fixtures. Our products can control products with DALI, 0-10 V and PWM, as well as open-close fixtures without DIMM characteristics. Our smart city lighting control products can measure the consumption of the fixture, adjust the brightness of the light (DIMM), turn it on and off, report faults. They can also measure the mains voltage and report fluctuations in the networks to the user. Again, since the system is considered modular, various sensors can be added to the same area and the structure can be expanded with various different products. It's like, "Oh, my God. When controlling the light of an area, it is possible to control it through the same system by adding many of our products such as fresh air sensors, meteorological sensors, heat sensors, motion or asset sensors, dry contacts, consumption measurement tips to the system. So when you're controlling the lights of a park, you can measure the temperature there, look at the air quality. With the installation of this system, both serious savings are achieved on the customer side and very serious maintenance costs are avoided.
Can you tell us about your working system with manufacturers?
Oliptek does not already produce lighting products, it produces control products. In other words, the main goal here is to produce automation for manufacturers. We can work together in the first R&D phase of the product and develop the product together as well as in the form of providing automation products to the finished product. In this way, lighting manufacturers develop products in the field where they are experts, and we produce products in the field where we are experts, namely on the automation side.
What kind of team is in the background of OLIPTEK ?
As I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, we company partners each manage the areas in which we are experts. I can describe the product development side in three main headings. These include computer engineering, electronics engineering and industrial design. This core development team works together on both R&D, production and design. This team includes electrical engineers, electronics engineers, industrial designers, graphic designers, mechanical engineers and technicians and technicians. Our production staff consists of very expert and experienced friends. The software side of some companies is strong, the electronic side of some companies is strong. We think we're strong on both of these issues. We also think that industrial design is very important. Thanks to our engineers working in this field, we receive very positive returns from the field experiences of our products. Our products are very appreciated in terms of both visuality and functionality.
How do you transform existing lamps?
For the current transformation, there are currently conventional lamps and LED lamps, which we consider over two types. LED conversion is a very important issue, but it may not always be a very fast conversion. Even without conversion, we can save serious energy by managing products such as halogen, metal halide, incandescent lamp, fluorescent lamp, as well as reduce operating costs by monitoring inventory and tracking faults. In the case of fault monitoring of lamps without DIMM feature, on/offs depending on the scenario can be done with Oliptek products.

In LEDs, we can divide the dimmable ones into non-DIMMable ones. Dimmable LED lamps can be managed like conventional lamps, as I just explained. DIMMable LEDs are able to manage directly with our products. Products can be DALI, 0-10 or PWM.
At the same time, not only lighting products, but also other products in the field can be managed. We can integrate air conditioners, asset sensors, air sensors, dry contacts, shutters, barriers, etc. into our system and manage them from a single system.
What gains can lighting product manufacturers achieve if they cooperate with OLIPTEK?
The most important gain of our producers here will be to make a difference to their products. Standard products will become smart with the integration of our products. You know, energy saving is an issue that has been emphasized a lot in our country in recent years. The whole public is being directed in this direction. The private sector, on the other hand, has to take care of savings because energy costs and maintenance costs are already high. At this point, Oliptek products enable differentiation of lighting products, increasing sales and customer satisfaction.
Can you tell us about the contributions of OLIPTEK products at the point of saving?
We are witnessing serious initiatives in terms of saving. Since our energy costs are imported, we can prevent these losses with savings. Take the People's Parks, for example. These parks need to be lit up, watered, managed at night. Strong lighting is needed during periods of activity. Other times, high light is not needed. Places like this need to be managed. Because it wouldn't be right to spend a high amount of energy all the time. It needs to be adjusted to daylight, event schedules, security needs. We have seen and reported 58% energy savings thanks to the management of lighting. The smart City Lighting products we have established for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality have saved 58% energy as well as significant operating costs by managing the light and other objects here. In addition, with the whole system paying for itself in one year, we wrote the next years as a surplus money to the household and secured the installation systems. Thanks to the system, your comfort and the life of the products increase, but you also save significantly on maintenance costs. In addition, we measure the consumption of all lamps of the park, we report if there is a failure, we see the energy in the city grid, we hold data backwards, we can turn the energy on and off when needed. Again, we measure weather conditions, air pollution in the parking area, report unauthorized interventions to the park board to the teams, we can turn all the energy of the park on and off remotely. We are able to integrate all this into the skada system, which is the top software of the users, and allow the maintenance side personnel to perform remote control without leaving their desks. This is only part of a wide range of stories. With smart city automation systems, we are able to provide an environment for these studies to be much more diversified.
You said that you had projects that you carried out not only at home but also abroad. Can you briefly tell us about these projects?
Since 2012, our projects in various European countries were followed by the implementation of our project in U.S.A Florida in 2015.Then, in 2018, we realized our project in Los Angeles. Our media fasat system, which we first produced as a meshled screen in 2011, moved to the North African Region in 2017 with our projects in Morocco and Algeria. Following our reference projects in North Africa, we carried out projects in Europe using our mesh pixel products.
What would you like to say about smart building systems?
As Digital Engineering, we have narrowed our field of study and as OLIPTEK we have specialized in two main subjects. The first is intelligent automation systems, and the other is media fascia systems. By media fasat systems, we mean light animation technology in new generation buildings. Here we have products in two ways: first; we produce the controller of light systems, but also the products of these systems (media fasat systems). We have a few kinds of products here. LEDBAR, we check buildings in linear color or monochrome. Secondly, we create screens by combining them. MESHBAR is our meshled display product that we produce exclusively between two buildings or between two poles on the building surfaces and we have made one of the biggest examples in the world. This DMX-controlled product, which we produce as Full RGB, offers unlimited animation options on the facades. Since the product can also be produced with IP67 outdoor option, it can be used safely in all fields.
Our MESHBAR product has different shapes in the world, but it is the only system with this structure that we produce. We feed the products from the top with special cables and sockets. We turn buildings into screens according to architectural structure. We display screenshots by night animation without any image during the day. Since the products are thin and special production, they do not spoil the architectural structure. Here we meet with designers who design lighting professionally. We are working on animations during the pre-sales and marketing phase. We send it to the customer, after the customer likes it, we make sales contracts and produce the product. Then we assemble and prepare the animations and deliver them to the customer. Therefore, all stages from start to finish are followed within our own structure.

On the other hand, Oliptek products for smart buildings can be used safely both in central administration and in edge units. The wireless communication option and its expanding structure provide good alternatives for smart buildings.
Finally, if you have thoughts that we did not mention in the interview and that you would like to add, can we find out?
In short, we as OLIPTEK are a company that produces R&D and technology. We produce smart objects that make manufacturers' products value-added. I would also like to mention our DMX products, which I mentioned little in the interview. The DMX product group is our product group used in media façade systems. We produce DMX Master Controller products for media façade systems as well as end brims such as DMX repeater, DMX decoder. This group of products produced at world standards will reduce the dependence on the outside in this field and have serious export potential.