POSCO ICT is supporting manufacturing companies to improve their competitiveness in preparation for the post-corona era by utilizing the technology and know-how accumulated in the process of building smart factories for POSCO's steel mills, which were selected as world lighthouse factories. 

POSCO ICT said it will push ahead with a project to build a smart factory for Korea Glass Industrial Co.,Ltd, the nation's leading glass maker. POSCO ICT plans to build a smart factory-based Manufacturing Execution System (MES) at Korea Glass Industrial's Gunsan plant by January next year.

Through this process, the Gunsan plant is expected to be converted into a smart factory system by digitizing the entire process from the injection stage of raw materials for glass production to production and shipment. In particular, various data generated from the entire process will be collected and refined to analyze with big data, and a system will be established to freely exchange and utilize data among processes. For example, if a defect occurs, it is expected that precise quality control such as tracking data back to find the cause of the defect in the previous process stage will be possible, and that the inventory rate of products and raw materials will be reduced by linking customer orders and production status data. 

Recently, experts have emphasized strengthening the competitiveness of the domestic manufacturing industry through smart factories to preemptively respond to the post-corona era. In particular, it is diagnosed that rearmament through smart factories should be preceded by the re-shoring of production plants concentrated in China or Southeast Asia through this pandemics.

A recent survey of domestic manufacturers by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry on post-corona responses by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed that two out of three respondents are willing to switch to digital, and more than half (57.8 percent) of them are willing to push ahead with digitalization of the production sector. In line with this trend, the Ministry of SMEs and Venture Business is also carrying out support projects aimed at spreading the smart factories of small and medium-sized companies to 30,000 by 2022. 

POSCO ICT is supporting the digitization of these companies by utilizing the technology and know-how that have built smart factories for steel mills. To this end, the company is actively pushing for smart factory projects targeting continuous processes such as heavy chemicals, glass and paper, which are similar to steel industries, while making their smart factory solutions lighter so that they can be applied to small and medium-sized companies. 

"We have been working with POSCO to implement smart factories in steel mills, which are the world's first continuous processes, and to spread them to manufacturing industries of similar processes such as LS-Nikko copper" a POSCO ICT official said. "We are planning to actively pursue projects to spread smart factories to small and medium-sized businesses as manufacturers are increasingly interested in smart factories after Corona 19."