The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Park Sang-jin), under the Ministry of Science and ICT, is taking steps to solve mechanical design difficulties faced by small and medium-sized enterprises through ‘Smart DP’, which contains 40 years of mechanical design know-how.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials announced on the 11th that it is supporting the strengthening of the competitiveness of the machinery industry of small and medium-sized enterprises with the smart design platform 'SmartDP (Smart Design Platform)'.

SmartDP, developed by the research team led by Lee Geun-ho, a senior researcher at the Smart Industrial Machinery Research Lab of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, is a software that can virtually design 21 types of core mechanical parts, ranging from gear trains to fasteners, spray nozzles, laser processing equipment, plasma processing equipment, gas combustors, and electric dust collectors, that small and medium-sized companies need in the mechanical industry.

Any company that wants to can use the program by registering as a member on the SmartDP website. Companies can receive optimized designs by entering their desired specifications into the program.

The research team began pilot operation of SmartDP in 2009, and has been operating it since launching the official service in 2020. LS Mtron received technology transfer for the gear train design program and used it to design tractor transmissions, and Jinsol Turbo Machinery also used SmartDP for gearbox design. In addition, 36 domestic companies, universities, and institutions are currently using the service.

By utilizing the SmartDP service, companies that have been struggling due to a lack of specialized personnel in the mechanical equipment field, or small and medium-sized companies that have been hesitant to develop new products or processes due to the burden of expensive usage fees for existing commercial software programs, can also spur competitiveness enhancement.

Senior Researcher Lee Keun-ho said, “Small and medium-sized companies are achieving independence in mechanical equipment design technology and shortening product development cycles by utilizing Smart DP,” adding, “I hope that this will help more companies increase their competitiveness through a virtuous cycle of budget reduction and sales maximization by utilizing Smart DP.”

Meanwhile, this study was conducted with the support of the 'Development of Core Machinery Equipment Smart Design Platform Technology' project supported by the National Research Council of Science and Technology's BIG project.