Ministry of SMEs and Startups Holds Smart Manufacturing Policy Innovation Roundtable
Discusses Introduction of Smart Manufacturing Specialized Company Designation System and More
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Promotion Group announced on the 9th that they held a Smart Manufacturing Policy Innovation Roundtable with companies and experts at Seoul Square in Jung-gu, Seoul, to discuss ways to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) technological innovation.
This year, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is operating a roundtable to discuss policy directions with industry and academic experts for manufacturing innovation using AI and manufacturing data standards and to strengthen the competitiveness of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises.
On this day, Jumi Kim, Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for Startup & Entrepreneurship Development, presented on the status of AI utilization in manufacturing SMEs based on the analysis results of the Ministry’s AI solution demonstration support project.
Senior Research Fellow Kim emphasized, "Global manufacturing companies are already actively utilizing AI in various areas, but domestic small and medium manufacturing companies are still introducing it in a limited way only in some parts of the product production value chain. It is necessary to expand AI application across the entire forward and backward value chains of small and medium manufacturing companies and diversify the application fields."
Lee Sang-hyun, Head of the Digital and AI Transformation Ecosystem Research Office at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, said, "Since the fields constituting the smart manufacturing industry vary by product and service, it is essential to establish criteria for designating specialized companies that fit industry characteristics and to create an incentive system that encourages specialized companies to voluntarily strengthen their capabilities."
Academic experts expressed the opinion that Korea has an environment suitable for driving manufacturing innovation using AI technology because it can secure manufacturing data across various industrial sectors. However, they pointed out that there is a lack of solutions that small and medium manufacturing companies can easily use, it is difficult to find AI talent active in small and medium manufacturing sites, and there are practices of avoiding disclosure of manufacturing data for AI model development due to concerns about trade secret leaks and lack of data standards. They emphasized the need for government-level interest and support to resolve these issues.
Regarding the introduction of the smart manufacturing specialized company designation system, companies representing fields such as robotics and other automation equipment, informatization solutions, and intelligent services attending the meeting evaluated that fostering smart manufacturing specialized companies, a promising growth sector in the AI technology innovation era, is timely. They hoped that a supplier capability assessment system and designation criteria reflecting industry-specific characteristics would be established and that a growth ladder policy would be prepared for companies that fall short of the selection criteria.
Kwon Soon-jae, Director of Manufacturing Innovation at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "The Ministry will do its best to prepare policies to increase accessibility and utilization of AI technology for small and medium manufacturing enterprises in cooperation with SMEs and academia and to maximize the strengths of Korea’s smart manufacturing industry ecosystem."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
