Samsung SDI to focus on quality
By Lee Min-hyung
Samsung SDI CEO Cho Nam-seong
Samsung SDI CEO Cho Nam-seong has urged his employees to confront unfavorable market conditions by focusing on the company’s core competency to manufacture safe products of high quality.
“With product safety at the forefront of our business, we need to tackle market uncertainties and lead the future business,” he told staff at a New Year’s meeting, Monday.
The remarks came as 2016 has been ever challenging for the battery-making affiliate of Samsung Group, due to the worldwide recall of the Galaxy Note 7 handset over continuing reports that its batteries catch fire while charging.
At first, the fiasco was attributed to SDI’s batteries, with Samsung Electronics citing the battery problem as the source of the hardware malfunction. But with replacement batteries from Chinese battery firm ATL also catching fire, it turned out SDI batteries were not the sole reason behind the termination of the flagship Samsung handset.
The Samsung SDI chief also called on employees and executives to get back to basics to lead what he called the “battery of things (BoT)” era where batteries are being adopted by growing numbers of applications in such areas as electric vehicles (EVs) and smartphones.
“Business competitiveness comes from core competency in quality products and cost competitiveness,” he said. “We need to lead the future battery industry by focusing on those fundamental competencies.”
Toward that end, the company said it would push for developing differentiated materials and standardized manufacturing processes this year, seeking to improve its brand value here and abroad.
“For our mid- to large-sized battery business, we are going to gain a competitive edge by developing next-generation products with high capacity,” he said. “For the small battery sector, SDI has to realign its capabilities in polymer substances and continue to develop new technologies for the cylindrical battery industry.”
Samsung SDI’s EV battery business has suffered months of setbacks due to China’s import regulations since last year. This was because the Chinese government has yet to certify Samsung SDI as a qualified battery manufacturer to receive subsidies in the world’s largest EV market there.
The outlook remains murky for the Seoul-based battery giant this year, due to the worsening political and economic relations between the two countries over such issues as Korea’s recent decision to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery as part of countermeasures to tackle North Korea’s regular provocations.
China has strongly protested the move, citing the U.S. missile defense system in Korea will likely undermine regional security.
Despite such uncertain market sentiments, Cho called on his employees to get back to the basics and renovate the company’s working environment.
“2016 had been all about finding problems in our working culture and coming up with ways to improve it,” he said. “In 2017, we are going to make it a habit to push for a new working culture.”