Lighthouse Factory: Intelligently Connecting the Entire Manufacturing Process
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is recruiting companies hoping to participate in the K-Lighthouse Factory program until February 19th.


The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 7th that it will be accepting applications from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) wishing to participate in the 'K-Smart Lighthouse Factory' project, which supports the construction of AI and data-based smart factories, from Thursday, January 7th to Friday, February 19th.

The Smart Lighthouse Factory is a leading smart factory centered on small and medium-sized enterprises, benchmarking the 'Lighthouse Factory' selected by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in July 2019, focusing on large corporations (54 companies including Bosch, Siemens, POSCO, BMW, and P&G).

This project was planned to achieve 'Value Chain Networked-Based Manufacturing' by intelligently connecting the entire manufacturing process, from material receipt and product manufacturing to supply and distribution.

Applicants must be small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that aim to build advanced smart factories where manufacturing processes are analyzed by AI and can be controlled in real time.

In order to discover excellent companies, we recommended up to three candidate companies from each of the 19 regional manufacturing innovation centers (TPs) across the country.

This project evaluates ▲ sophistication ▲ sustainability ▲ industrial and economic ripple effects to represent the industry.A total of 10 companies will be selected and supported with up to 400 million won per company per year, up to a maximum of 1.2 billion won over 3 years.

To ensure effective expansion to the upstream and downstream manufacturing industries, industries are selected by dividing them into main industries such as machinery, electronics, chemicals, and roots, and other industries such as food and pharmaceuticals.

Selected companies will first receive customized, precise diagnosis tailored to their individual circumstances and annual strategy development through specialized institutions. Based on the results, they will then be provided with solutions such as AI and 5G.

The expansion of smart factories is a key national policy initiative to foster manufacturing innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The government is pursuing the goal of deploying 30,000 smart factories by 2022. Approximately 20,000 smart factories have been deployed to date, and companies implementing smart factories are seeing, on average, productivity improvements of 30% and cost reductions of 15%.

Specific details of the project can be found in the project announcement on the website of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups or in the Smart Factory Project Management System of the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Promotion Team of the Small and Medium Business Technology Information Promotion Agency, which is the project's dedicated organization. Applications can also be made online through the Smart Factory Project Management System.