“Many people are scared at first, but when they actually introduce digital transformation (DX), they can feel the effects right away.”
DM Tech Consulting, which builds a cloud-based manufacturing integration platform, is a software company that helps domestic manufacturing companies introduce DX. We have entered into a smart factory conversion project as part of the government’s ‘smart manufacturing industry development support plan’ to increase the manufacturing competitiveness of domestic small and medium-sized companies suffering from manpower shortages and low productivity. It received the grand prize from the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Promotion Team at the ‘2024 Smart Factory Support Project Excellent Case Performance Sharing and Awards Ceremony’ held in Ulsan on the 15th.
Integrated production management through one platform
Soo-jeong Hwang, CEO of DM Tech Consulting, said, “Many small and medium-sized companies are still writing most of the work by hand. If they link the equipment and can see the factory running in the office in real time, then the representatives decide to do it from then on.” .
CEO Hwang, who worked in the manufacturing computer system field for more than 20 years, founded DM Tech Consulting in 2019. The name of the platform he developed is ‘Smart Factory Manager’. He said, “The smart factory manager implements the essential systems that manufacturing companies manage by department on a single platform and provides them as standardized cloud services,” adding, “Not only sales and purchasing for integrated production management, but also work logs, facility monitoring, and facility condition information. “Quality management, etc. are organically connected on one platform,” he explained.
DM Tech Consulting also received the DX grand prize in the Smart Factory Best Practice Contest of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups last August. As a result of the company’s 2021 smart factory construction project for auto parts company Taejeong Machinery, production increased by 36.3% and process defect rate decreased by 91%. Thanks to quality improvement, Taejeong Machinery was able to receive additional orders worth 10 billion won. CEO Hwang emphasized, “Taejeong Machinery’s production volume per hour has increased from 1,798 to 2,451.”
Korea’s Chinese technology level reached 84.4%
Like DM Tech Consulting, the overseas expansion of domestic smart factory suppliers (software developers) is expected to become more visible. In order to create a manufacturing innovation ecosystem in Korea, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has decided to come up with a policy of ‘Leaping into a world-class manufacturing powerhouse by fostering the smart manufacturing industry’ and actively help software developers advance overseas. It was decided to increase the number of smart manufacturing companies to 500 by 2027. Specifically, we plan to carry out three major tasks: designating 500 smart manufacturing specialized companies by 2027, nurturing 200 specialized companies entering the global market, and standardizing data on 500 smart manufacturing core equipment.
The smart manufacturing industry refers to △automation of the manufacturing process △connection between equipment processing companies △informatization and intelligence of the production process. In order to foster this industry, the government decided to intensively support four areas: automation devices, connected devices, informatization solutions, and intelligent services. The reason for introducing this support measure is that Korea’s comprehensive technology level in the smart manufacturing industry is lower than that of advanced countries. According to a survey by the Small and Medium Venture Business Research Institute, when considering the United States as 100%, the European Union is 97.2%, Japan 88.8%, and China 82.3%, but Korean small and medium-sized businesses are at 74.9%.
In order to raise this to 84.4% by 2027, the government will reduce the smart factory project process, which currently takes 12 steps and 23 months, to 8 steps and 14 months. The goal is to shorten the period by up to 9 months by establishing a new exemption clause for written evaluation, improving the planning support system, and unifying final supervision and completion inspection. In addition, to designate 500 smart manufacturing companies, we plan to provide customized support in seven strategic areas, including AI, digital twin, and production management systems.
Reporter Min Ji-hye/Choi Hyeong-chang calling@hankyung.com
