Dongsuh Foods to run smart factory in Incheon
Dongsuh Foods CEO Lee Kwang-bok looks at the board in the control room of a smart factory in Bupyeong, Incheon, May 22. / Courtesy of Dongsuh Foods Corp.
By Kim Jae-heun
The country's instant coffee giant Dongsuh Foods said Wednesday it will invest 41.8 billion won ($33.9 million) to turn its instant drink manufacturing plants, located in Bupyeong-gu in Incheon and Changwon in South Gyeongsang Province, into “smart factories.”
By applying “smart factory” systems in its Bupyeong factory, the company is aiming to boost production stability and efficiency for its popular instant coffee items including Maxim Kanu, Maxim Mocha Gold and Maxim T.O.P.
Dongsuh Food built the country's very first coffee plant in Bupyeong. With people demanding more variants of instant coffee sticks, it needs to improve the factory's overall manufacturing processes as part of cost-cutting efforts.
Automatic control and real-time monitoring are possible now by integrating production processes that were previously operated individually, such as bean roasting, extracting, condensing, freezing and drying.
The increased efficiency is expected to provide customers with high-quality coffee products at a reasonable price, according to company officials. The smart factory upgrades also strengthened its quality and safety management.
The food company will be able to predict and check for facility failures in advance to produce safer products with a real-time monitoring and analysis system that complements the limitations of existing facility management, which could formerly only identify problems after an actual incident.
In addition, an unmanned automatic quality inspection system will be adopted in production lines and real-time production data will be collected to manage the route of movement from product release to distribution.
Starting with the Bupyeong plant in Incheon, Dongsuh Food plans to expand the usage of its smart factory concept to the other domestic plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, which mainly produces Maxim Mocha Gold and Coffee Prima.
"By introducing advanced smart factory technologies, we can supply products that meet consumers' tastes safely and efficiently in a timely manner,” Kim Jung-ki, head of Dongsuh Foods' smart factory in Bupyeong, said in a statement. "We will continue to introduce various top-quality coffee through reliable product processes and system management."