Turkish manufacturer CES Composites spoke with BodyArmorNews.Com again during the Milipol Paris exhibition. Founded in 1996, the company presented a wide array of ballistic helmets, shields and body armor at the exhibition. As one of Turkey’s leading defense producers, CES is a case study on the importance of diversification.
Diverse Products
CES offers a wide array of products which span across the fields of aerospace and personal protection. The diversity of output was emphasized as a key strength by Sales Manager Pierre Yves Garon. “[The fields] are completely interconnected and what is great is that the most demanding field will always pull all the other things to the highest standards.”
Garon stressed the difficulty of meeting the “very demanding” standards of the aerospace industry in particular. This points to a key benefit of diversification for the defense industry: varied fields have varied requirements, and interconnectedness between them ensures products of the highest quality.
Moreover, Garon stressed the “healthy” atmosphere of collaboration created by a connection across fields. CES is able to apply findings from aerospace to its body armor production, and vice versa. For customers, this means higher quality products at a potentially lower cost.
Diverse Production
While CES got its start in Turkey, it now has a facility in the UK. Garon placed emphasis on the importance of a diverse production capacity, especially considering current geopolitical tensions. Having varied operations makes it so that CES is able to select its location based on “the market [they] want to address.”
With tightening trade restrictions, this can provide an excellent competitive advantage. The use of varied suppliers is thus similarly important. In order to reduce risks of complete cutoffs of supply, as was the case with the extreme instances of Russian Aramid shortages, varied suppliers are beneficial. “It’s very important to not rely on one singular supplier, so it’s multiplying the supply chain,” stated Garon.
Diversity, but at what cost?
With diverse products and diverse production comes a diverse customer base. The biggest struggle facing CES is not finding customers but “satisfying them,” explains Garon. Industry bottlenecks, namely the enduring difficulty to “find the raw materials” to match skyrocketing demands, remain a large concern. Still, the diversified, intentionally international approach to defense taken by CES Composites stands out when markets are increasingly shifting towards domestic production.
