Posco to make all its plants ‘smart factories’

Korea’s top steelmaker Posco said Wednesday that it would begin implementing a new system that automates many of its production processes through data analysis in an effort to step up efficiency across its subsidiaries.

The company claims it is the first steelmaker in the world to adopt this “smart factory” system. Smart factories refer to production systems where computers can monitor physical processes and help make decentralized decisions based on analysis of those processes.

Posco made the announcement at the Smart Posco Forum, where not only its own employees but also representatives from its business partners, suppliers and artificial intelligence experts shared the steelmaker’s efforts in the past year to spread smart factory-related technologies.

The company launched a “Smart Solution Council” under the direct command of the CEO last year to resolve problems that might occur in factories on the back of big data and artificial intelligence, and the effort helped the company save 15.7 billion won ($14 million) in cost.

“Posco, in tandem with the fourth industrial revolution era, needs to persistently take challenges to realize Smart Posco,” Posco Chairman Kwon Oh-joon said at the event. “The smart factory will spill over to the entire process in steel factories as well as management sectors like finance, human resources and purchasing.”

Kwon has also devised a plan to expand the system to the company’s business partners.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]