| Sharing Best Practices in Project Implementation and Testbed Cases
Discussion on measures to enhance the adoption of smart factories
1,167 companies applied out of this year's target of 2,800

On the 2nd, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups held a meeting with heads of smart manufacturing innovation centers at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry to listen to difficulties on the ground and discuss measures to improve the performance of smart factory deployment.

The Smart Manufacturing Innovation Center is an organization that was first established in 19 TPs in February and March of this year and is an institution aimed at distributing 30,000 smart factories by 2022.

The center, which best understands the conditions of companies and the local community, directly selects companies to adopt smart factories and provides one-stop support ranging from consulting and technology development to post-implementation management.

During the meeting held on this day, Vice Minister Kim Hak-do of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the heads of the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Centers shared their field experiences gained while deploying smart factories.

Vice Minister Kim Hak-do emphasized, “Smart factories are an important initiative that can revitalize the regional economy by enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (30% increase in productivity, 43% decrease in defect rates) and creating high-quality jobs (2.2 increase in employment, 22% decrease in industrial accidents).”

Local governments and regional SMEs are showing great interest, with 1,167 companies—equivalent to 42% of this year's target of 2,800—having applied by the end of April; in particular, Jeonnam Province saw applications more than double compared to the previous year within just two months of the announcement (36 distributed in 2018, 75 applications in April 2019). The enthusiasm for smart factories is high.

“If this is expanded nationwide, I feel reassured knowing that we will successfully achieve this year’s goal of deploying 4,000 smart factories (2,800 government and 1,200 private),” he said in encouragement.

The center directors suggested that strengthening follow-up management, expanding testbeds, and increasing government support ratios are necessary to accelerate the adoption of smart factories in the region.

In response, Vice Minister Kim replied, “To resolve post-management issues, we plan to dispatch experts from large corporations to companies to transfer know-how and establish a hotline where companies can request consultation at any time to resolve on-site difficulties immediately.” He added, “We will strive to reflect the expansion of testbeds and an increase in the government support ratio in the supplementary budget or the 2020 budget.”

He also said, “14 metropolitan and provincial governments, including 13.4 billion won in Gyeongnam and 3.4 billion won in Jeonnam, have separately allocated 32.6 billion won to alleviate the burden on small and medium-sized enterprises and are creating an atmosphere of manufacturing innovation from the regions by supporting ‘preliminary diagnosis for smart factory construction’ and ‘establishment of smart factory construction strategies.’” He added, “We plan to grant maximum autonomy so that regions can fully demonstrate their expertise and provide additional incentives to high-performing centers. Therefore, I ask that companies, universities, research institutes, and local governments come together, centering on the centers that serve as points of contact with the field, to discover various success stories.”e@e4ds.com>