LG CNS spins off in-house customs clearing startup

Hempking CEO Kim Seung-hyun, right, and CTO Yang Ja-sung / Courtesy of LG CNS

By Baek Byung-yeul

LG CNS has spun off an in-house startup specializing in the customs clearance business that utilizes robotics process automation (RPA) tools, the IT affiliate of LG Group said Thursday.

The startup, Hempking, is now offering customs clearance services to customs brokerage company SEIN Customs & Auditing Corporation, LG CNS said.

SEIN is the country's largest customs and trade service firm, providing import and export customs clearance services. Hempking has adapted its RPA tools for SEIN's operating system, helping it process customs clearance documentation for its more than 2,000 customers more conveniently.

“Based on its artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Hempking's RPA tools helped drastically reduce the time for the customs clearance process from about five hours per container to five minutes. This was possible because the tools automatically scan and digitize invoice data so quickly,” LG CNS said.

Hempking said the automation rate of SEIN's customs clearance process is about 30 percent at this point and it plans to fully automate it by the first half of 2020. The company also plans to supply its RPA tools to more than 1,000 customs brokerage firms here.

Hempking expects that its customers can improve the work performance of their employees and achieve cost savings by automating mundane customs clearance tasks.

The company was started by two LG CNS software engineers Kim Seung-hyun, now CEO of Hempking, and Yang Ja-sung, chief technology officer of the spin-off, after they were chosen for the LG CNS in-house startup incubator program, Idea Monster, in 2018.

LG CNS invested about 900 million won ($760,000) in Hempking including providing office space and software engineers. After the spin-off, Hempking will receive an equity investment of 500 million won from LG CNS. Currently, a total of 150 teams have taken part in the Idea Monster incubator program.

“The in-house incubator program is designed to offer our employees new growth opportunities. the program helps the company nurture an agile corporate culture,” said LG CNS CTO Kim Hong-keun.