Up to 450 Million KRW Support for Companies Participating in Smart Manufacturing Innovation R&D

Ministry of SMEs and Startups Accepts Applications from March 14 to 29
195 New 'Field Application' Projects Selected

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 28th that it will recruit support projects for the 'Field Application Sector' of the 'Smart Manufacturing Innovation Technology Development Project (R&D)' from the 14th to the 29th of next month.

Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups. Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@

The Smart Manufacturing Innovation R&D is a project launched in 2022 to support the digital transformation (DX) of domestic small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. It supports everything from technology development to enhance core supply technologies in the three major smart manufacturing areas?advanced manufacturing, flexible production, and field application?to the demonstration stage of technology development results.

Since 2022, 49 projects related to implementing advanced smart factory models (advanced manufacturing) and small-lot multi-product production (flexible production) have been selected and supported. Although technology development is not yet complete, it has shown technical and economic achievements such as 19 SCI(E)-level papers, 55 patents, and the creation of 210 jobs.

This year, 195 new projects focusing on the development of digitalization technologies applicable to process units in manufacturing sites will be selected in the field application sector, with support of up to 3 years and up to 450 million KRW per project.

In the field application sector, applications can be made autonomously within 30 technology items selected last year through detailed planning, verification, and public hearings by industry-academia-research experts based on the technology demand of domestic small manufacturing companies and suppliers. Also, only small and medium enterprises as defined in Article 2 of the 'Framework Act on Small and Medium Enterprises' can apply as the lead research and development institution, and must form a consortium with manufacturing companies capable of demonstrating and applying the technology development results. This is to promote technology development that meets manufacturing site demands from the planning stage together with the demand-side manufacturing companies and to enable immediate demonstration at manufacturing sites after R&D so that the results can quickly spread to the demand market.

Kim Woo-soon, Director of Technology Innovation Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "To qualitatively advance the manufacturing innovation ecosystem of domestic SMEs, it is necessary to proactively improve the level of core smart manufacturing supply technologies and foster supply companies," adding, "We will actively support securing core supply technologies and fostering supply companies through the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Technology Development Project."

For more details, please refer to the project announcement in the Pan-Government Integrated Research Support System.