Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
LS Electric forges partnership with LG Electronics for smart factory solutions
Cho Wook-dong, left, senior vice president of LS Electric, left, poses with Song Si-yong, vice president of LG Electronics, after signing a memorandum of understanding for smart factory business at the former’s headquarters in Seoul, Tuesday. Courtesy of LS Electric
By Baek Byung-yeul
LS Electric seeks to pioneer the global smart factory market in collaboration with LG Electronics, with both companies being globally recognized as "lighthouse factories" that have demonstrated leadership in the manufacturing industry by actively introducing digital technologies, the power equipment company said Wednesday.
LS Electric said it signed a memorandum of understanding with LG Electronics on Tuesday to form an alliance to share their technology, market and partners in the smart factory business. They agreed to jointly deploy smart factory construction solutions and digital solutions for manufacturing and energy efficiency businesses.
The term lighthouse factory refers to a factory that has become a model in the manufacturing industry using key digital technologies such as the Internet of Things, or IoT, artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, evoking comparison to a lighthouse that guides the way for ships.
LS Electric and LG Electronics were both selected as lighthouse factories at the World Economic Forum in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
Through the partnership, the two will forge extensive collaboration in smart factory business, such as joint promotion of domestic and overseas smart factory markets, technological cooperation and information exchange and active proposals on solutions and capabilities held by both companies for domestic and overseas customers.
LS Electric's Cheongju plant in North Chungcheong Province, which was selected as a lighthouse factory, is equipped with many core technological systems for smart factories, including mass production of various products automatically; logistics robots capable of autonomous driving; AI-based real-time automatic welding and machine learning-based noise and vibration inspection.
LG Electronics applied intelligent production systems in its Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, and Tennessee factories so that the plants can predict the status of production, quality and facilities in advance through real-time monitoring using robots using AI, big data and digital twin technology.
"At a time when digital transformation is accelerating in the industries, collaboration with top global partners in each field is essential," Cho Wook-dong, senior vice president of LS Electric, said. "Through cooperation with LG Electronics, we will promote both companies' digital transformation capabilities, led by smart factories, in the global market as well as domestically, starting with the Hannover Messe exhibition this year."