LS ELECTRIC Offers an Insight into Future of Global Manufacturing

Chairman Koo Ja-kyun of LS ELECTRIC.

LS ELECTRIC’s Cheongju plant has been designated as a “lighthouse factory” by World Economic Forum.

A lighthouse factory refers to a plant capable of creating new performance models of the manufacturing industry by utilizing core technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution, such as IoT, AI and cloud, as a lighthouse guides ships in a dark sea.

A whole view of LS ELECTRIC’s smart factory in Cheongju. (Photos: LS ELECTRIC)

Becomes second Korean company to be designated as a ‘lighthouse factory’ for sustainability and productivity breakthroughs following POSCO

LS ELECTRIC, a power, automation and smart energy unit of LS Group, has been designated as one of 2021’s “lighthouse factories” by the World Economic Forum.

LS ELECTRIC has become the second Korean company to be designated as a lighthouse factory for sustainability and productivity breakthroughs following POSCO, which become one of the 2019 lighthouse factories.

WEF’s Global Lighthouse Network Annual Meeting 2021 designated LS ELECTRIC’s smart factory in Cheongju, Chungcheongbuk-do, as one of the 2021 lighthouse factories.

WEF has announced lighthouse factories twice annually after screening factories around the world since 2018.

WEF evaluated that LS ELECTRIC’s Cheongju plant has flexibility and production efficiency to meet diverse customers’ demands.

Differentiating strategies, such as the declaring of ESG management, essential for corporate sustainable growth, and its own development of an energy management solution (EMG) unlike other companies have been also cited.

The G building of LS ELECTRIC’s Cheongju 1 Worksite is outfitted with smart production lines.

It produces LS ELECTRIC’s mainstay products, such as low-voltage circuit breakers and switches. About 20 unmanned carts travel along aisle of the production lines.

The carts carry parts to each designated production line using GPS, and finished products are moved to an automatically packaged line.

The plant employs robots to conduct an inspection into the quality of finished products, a move to minimize the gap in each crew member’ visual inspection.

LS ELECTRIC has built a smart factory on a gradual basis by investing more than 20 billion won for about four years from 2011.

The company has achieved system innovation that can enable mass production of diverse kinds of products as well as small amounts of production tailored to meet needs by combining ICT and automation technologies.

Building a smart factory has produced fruits beyond expectations. The plant has seen productivity jump 60 percent by halving the waiting time for use of facilities.

Low-voltage gadget product line has seen production of 38 kinds of items surge from conventional 7,500 units to some 20,000 units per day.

Energy consumption has saved more than 60 percent. An LS ELECTRIC official said, “Smartification of production lines has not only greatly improved productivity and energy efficiency, but also raised customer satisfaction and workers’ working conditions and convenience.”

Meanwhile, LS ELECTRIC has operated the win-win partnership smart factory platform “Tech Square” to spread smart factory to SMEs in Korea.

Tech Square is an open platform in which consumers and suppliers as well as industry and academia experts can participate.

It offers lifetime mentoring, connecting consumers and supply companies, project management, and maintenance & repair services.

About 450 SMEs have utilized Tech Square since its launch, LS ELECTRIC said.