The government will select the first 10 leading intelligent factories centered on small and medium-sized enterprises, following the example of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s lighthouse factories, and provide up to 1.2 billion won per company over the next three years.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Kwon Chil-seung) announced that it has selected 10 companies for the 'K-Smart Lighthouse Factory' project, which supports the construction of top-level smart factories that can be controlled remotely in real time by applying artificial intelligence, big data, and digital twins.

'K-Smart Lighthouse Factory' is a factory that innovatively leads the future of global manufacturing. It is a leading smart factory centered on small and medium-sized enterprises that benchmarks the global Lighthouse Factory selected by the World Economic Forum (WEF) mainly among large corporations.

The companies selected this time will serve as benchmarking models that suggest directions for advancement for domestic small and medium-sized enterprises and lead the industry.

For six months leading up to selection, we supported customized diagnosis and design for recommended companies from 19 regional techno parks after the first screening. And by evaluating the implementation strategy, we selected the final 10 companies with excellent △sophistication △sustainability △industrial and economic ripple effects.

The selected companies are △Neonent △Daewoo AP △Dongseo Engineering △Sambo Motors △Shinseong Engineering △Autonics △Taerim Industry △Telstar △Daesun Address △Chosun Refractories, etc., 3 small and medium-sized companies and 7 medium-sized companies. When looking at them by industry, there are 8 companies in the main industry such as roots and automobiles, and 2 companies in other industries.

Taerim Industry is a small and medium-sized enterprise that exports more than 77% of its products, including automobile steering devices, to the world's largest automobile parts manufacturers, Bosch and ZF. It is building assembly automation using artificial intelligence and data-based 3D production line simulation.

Autonics is an export-oriented mid-sized company that produces various types of sensors and builds deep learning-based machine vision, digital twins for the 5th generation (5G) environment, and robot automation lines.

Dongseo Machinery is a mid-sized company that produces engine parts as its main business. It develops predictive maintenance technology that uses manufacturing big data and artificial intelligence algorithms to detect abnormalities in cutting tools in advance.

The remaining selected companies are also evaluated to have prepared specific implementation strategies suitable for future smart factories and presented directions for the advancement of Korean-style manufacturing optimized for the relevant industries (products).

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will provide up to 1.2 billion won over the next three years to selected companies to systematically build cutting-edge solutions such as artificial intelligence and digital twins through open innovation with supplier consortiums, universities, and research institutes.
In addition, for excellent companies, we plan to support related consulting and know-how transfer through collaboration between academia, industry and research institutes, including senior lighthouse factories (POSCO), so that they can challenge the global lighthouse factories hosted by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In particular, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will operate a tour program more than 16 times per company for two years once the construction of the K-Smart Lighthouse Factory is completed, targeting students and business officials.We will also provide skirting and learning opportunities.

Kim Il-ho, head of the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Planning Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “The K-Smart Lighthouse Factory is an example of a smart factory distribution policy that has shifted toward qualitative advancement based on the achievements of expanding the base so far,” and added, “We plan to expand to 100 by 2025, focusing on various industries.”

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is focusing on distributing 30,000 smart factories by 2022, and has contributed to the innovation of smart production systems for small and medium-sized enterprises by distributing about 20,000 factories as of last year.

Companies that actually introduced the technology showed process improvements such as an average 28.5% increase in productivity and a 15.5% reduction in cost, which led to management performance such as a 7.4% increase in sales.

In particular, starting this year, we are actively promoting global leading projects that support the qualitative advancement of smart factories, including the expansion of the AI Small and Medium Venture Manufacturing Platform (KAMP), K-Smart Lighthouse Factory, and leading digital clusters.