Bulletin

From Technical Expertise to Scalable Growth

At IKH, we focus on delivering measurable performance by combining our proven, application-specific solutions in technical ceramic powders with the series production capabilities we have developed, increased capacity and customer-approved products.
In shaping our 2026 strategy, we placed balanced growth across the carbide powders we have developed and the oxide powders we have customized at the center of our approach. We also aimed to increase our overall contribution and strengthen our product portfolio by continuing to pursue profitable sales opportunities in technical metal powders and other products.
We are implementing our 2026 investment plans in line with these goals. With the new equipment and integrated systems we have added to our production lines, we aim to meet growing customer demand and further increase the value our technical expertise brings to our customers’ processes and products.

Where Do We Create Value for Our Customers?

By combining IKH’s technical expertise with our customers’ operating conditions, we design application-specific powder formulations. Producing these products reproducibly, ensuring consistent quality and using our capacity effectively by measuring our processes end to end are our core areas of focus.
We evaluate and redefine parameters such as particle size, BET surface area, flowability, density and application-specific formulations according to our customers’ needs in pressing, sintering or specialized coating processes. The benefits we provide are validated through comprehensive testing and customer approval processes.
For carbide and ready-to-press (RTP) powders, our goal is to combine quality suited to the customer’s process with reliable and consistent supply. For oxide powders, we aim to make a tangible contribution to the customer’s process performance and the service life of the end product through controlled product variations. By managing our product mix in a balanced way, we help turn this value into sustainable economic returns.

 “Our strategic principle is to achieve sustainable growth by validating technical success together with customer approval and economic return.”
 

Expanding Market Reach with IKH Germany and IKH USA

IKH Germany’s sales, production and technical infrastructure, together with IKH USA’s local commercial presence, supports our ability to reach customers on an international scale.
Based on our assessment of the first three quarters of 2026, including the September forecast, we project growth of more than 40% in both IKH Germany’s direct sales and IKH USA’s sales. With this growth, we are expanding our sales and marketing network and strengthening our market presence.
Since the beginning of 2026, we have sold to 87 customers in 25 countries. While the United States and Europe account for the largest share of our sales, we continue to expand our reach in Asia through new projects and customer relationships.

Corporate Visibility

We present IKH’s production infrastructure, technical expertise and powder portfolio under a unified corporate narrative. We communicate our carbide, oxide and metal powder categories more clearly, together with their application areas and the benefits they offer customers. With our message “Global material solutions, local commitment”, we bring together our international reach, customer-focused approach and technical expertise.

Digital Transformation at IKH
Business Central Roll-Out

We are continuing our ERP expansion efforts to establish more consistent and functional processes across IKH’s departments. In addition to improvements in the sales, supply chain and finance modules, we are focusing on integrating R&D, planning, production, quality and warehouse management processes into Business Central workflows.

Production Visibility with Enlyze

We aim to monitor production and planning metrics, real-time equipment operating status, downtime and breakdown durations, and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) in a single data environment.
The pilot application is now in use. Using process data, we aim to identify efficiency opportunities, support ERP workflows and strengthen our data-driven management approach.

Laboratory Data Management with JARVIS LIMS

Joint projects and synergy efforts between the Nurol Teknoloji and IKH teams continue to deliver results. As part of this collaboration, the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), planned for the final quarter of 2026, aims to strengthen the traceability of quality data and its use in decision-making.

“The pace of our growth should be guided by customer approval, proven product performance, reliable production capabilities, and sustainable financial returns.”

Best regards,

Dilem KOÇAK / IKH - Head of Bussiness Development & Sales

Armor Integrity: From the Lab to the Field

Armor Integrity detects ballistic impacts on armored platforms in real time and monitors the structural health of the armor. It is the first product in its category both in Türkiye and worldwide. Using information such as the type, direction, frequency and number of threats, it shows how long the vehicle can remain in operation and how much maintenance it will need afterward, providing decision support at multiple levels of the command and control chain. We have completed TRL 5, and our TRL 6 work is ongoing. We are carrying out integration and field testing on FNSS's Pars Alpha and Kaplan platforms. In addition, by integrating the system with FNSS's unmanned amphibious vehicle İ-ZAHA, we aim to make it a differentiator in the unmanned vehicle category. In the coming period, we will validate the system through field tests and continue to introduce it to our customers and expand its use. Given the operational scenarios it addresses, we believe it will quickly find its place in both domestic and international markets.

ANQA: AI in Quality Control

Our new product ANQA is now in service for the quality control of ceramic armor plates. Computer vision models, trained with a data labeling method we developed in-house, classify the defect modes found on every plate. A large language model analyzes customer defect books and converts them into measurable criteria. The system then decides whether each plate is acceptable and gives the reasoning behind its decision. Evaluating each product in 2–4 seconds, ANQA has made quality control up to 10 times faster. Every decision is recorded, and final approval always rests with the operator.

AI Transformation: Strategy and Organization

We approach AI not as a set of individual tools but as a strategic and organizational transformation. We analyzed a large number of processes across our accounting, quality, procurement, planning, production and configuration management units. As a result, we have put around 30 AI use cases into live operation. These include assistants that make decisions on their own and communicate with internal systems such as SAP, QDMS and M-Files, as well as with global agencies, information centers and news channels. This has allowed us to focus our employees on higher value-added work. We see strong satisfaction and ownership across our teams. Our goal is to build a productive and sustainable corporate culture in which every employee works alongside AI.

Best regards,

Sinem AKYOL / Director of Digital Technologies

In 2026, alongside product development, our Ballistic Protection Systems R&D team also changed the way it works and digitalized its engineering processes. As part of this effort, the configuration agent we developed has taken over configuration control of our document sets under human oversight. We also continued our agent work for repetitive manual tasks in ERP processes.

The ARMORY and BASE software tools were developed to automatically prepare technical data packages for ballistic protection panels. ARMORY was used to prepare technical drawings for approximately 200 panels in a single quarter. By reducing manual preparation from 20–40 minutes per panel to seconds, it saved more than 100 hours of engineering time on a single project. To date, BASE has cut engineering and documentation time in half for nearly 40 designs.

In the APEX (Armor Performance & Efficiency Index) database, we matched data from ballistic tests with areal density, unit cost, material and production parameters. By comparing different solutions on this common dataset, we used Pareto analysis to identify those offering the best balance of performance and cost.

In the US market, two of our products, RF1 and RF1 Pro, have qualified at the RF1 level under NIJ Standard 0101.07. Our RF2 products are also in the final stage of qualification.

Using hybrid ceramics, we developed a configuration 20% lighter than our lightest NIJ 0101.06 Level IV plate. We produced RF-transparent armor systems and validated our solutions for close-range shooting scenarios through testing.

On the ballistic shield side, custom shield and viewport geometries designed to customer requirements have entered series production. New handle systems that eliminate the mounting holes that reduce the ballistic protection area have also been put into series production.

Armor solutions designed for custom panel geometries on naval platforms have also entered series production. Our protection solutions against explosive threats carried by FPV-type mini UAVs have been matured through simulations. The test plan prepared together with the end user to validate these solutions through live blast tests has been approved.

Ballistic armor plates designed for the female body were developed, and prototypes were produced and successfully tested. Lightweight armor solutions meeting extreme multi-hit requirements were developed. Armor solutions in which more than 95% of the materials are produced by Nurol Teknoloji have been qualified.

Across all projects, process optimizations were carried out to improve efficiency in energy consumption and labor hours. Qualification work was also carried out to integrate materials in stock into existing solutions.

Mert Can Şimşek / Head of Ballistic Solutions R&D and Product Management