130 Billion Won Investment, Completion in 2023, Advanced, Stable, Eco-Friendly Grade 1 Preliminary Certification 'Kwang Kwang'
[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Logistics centers are also fully opening the era of cutting-edge smart technology.
Kretech’s ‘Daegu Smart Logistics Center’ received the highest grade, Preliminary Certification Level 1, in the Smart Logistics Center certification evaluation from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Kretech plans to build a smart logistics center with a total investment of 130 billion KRW in construction and facilities on a total floor area of 68,000㎡ within the Gyeongsan 4 General Industrial Complex in Gyeongbuk. Completion is scheduled for the end of 2023.
Currently, about 20 companies including CJ, Hanjin, and Fasto have received smart logistics center certification in Korea. Kretech challenged the Ministry of Land’s smart logistics center certification, breaking the mold of industry specificity and being a mid-sized company, to open a new horizon for industrial tool logistics, and succeeded this time.
Having received Preliminary Certification Level 1, the entire process including design, construction, and supervision is expected to reveal facilities applying advanced science and eco-friendliness according to the Ministry’s strict standards.
Kretech, the largest tool distributor in Korea, is a company headquartered in Daegu with 50 years of experience handling 130,000 types of industrial tools. Last year’s sales amounted to 550 billion KRW, and it supplies products from about 1,200 domestic and international manufacturing brands to over 8,000 tool distributors nationwide.
Currently, Kretech operates logistics centers in Ingyeo-dong, Jung-gu, Daegu; Ihyeon-dong, Seo-gu; and Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province, but is pursuing automation in line with the 4th Industrial Revolution era.
Kretech explained, “Having a Level 1 logistics system in industrial tools rather than consumer goods means providing the highest level of logistics service and serves as a preview of the tool industry moving toward advanced technology.”
For cutting-edge logistics, Kretech benchmarked Japan’s Trusco unmanned logistics system and studied domestic systems such as Coupang and Daiso, as well as the American Amazon system.
The company currently collaborates with SFA, a domestic logistics automation solution company, utilizing 20 years of big data accumulated through its own integrated operation information system. It has also established an AI high-efficiency next-generation information system.
It plans to equip an automatic product sorting device, a 40m high high-efficiency pallet automated warehouse, and a multi-stacker crane, a high-speed automated warehouse that simultaneously handles storage, picking, and combined packaging using the GTP picking method.
AI-based storage, inbound/outbound, and sorting optimization automation equipment such as spiral conveyors will also be implemented.
This certification was finally decided through an expert document review and on-site inspection by the certification review committee, which includes logistics experts from the Korea Transport Institute under the Ministry of Land, industry, and academia.
Artificial intelligence operates in logistics processing functional areas such as inbound, storage, and sorting, and efficiency, safety, and eco-friendliness are applied in foundational areas such as warehouse management systems.
Kretech classified and systematized vast industrial tool information to achieve standardization and transparently disclosed price information, establishing distribution order in the industry.
Since the 2000s, online ordering systems and digitization of product information have progressed, and big data analysis of distribution transactions has been conducted, raising the domestic tool industry to the level of the United States and Japan.
Kretech consists of two main divisions: ‘Kretech Responsibility,’ focused on machine tools, and ‘Kretech Welding,’ centered on welding and industrial safety products. Last year, it received the Korea Service Award and the Bronze Tower Industrial Medal.
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