Smart Factory in China
SK Holdings C&C announced at Lotus Hotel in Chongqing, China, on Jan. 20 that it has started a smart factory pilot project in the Chongqing plant of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., or Foxconn.
The Chongqing plant of Hon Hai produces printers and monitors by commission from global companies. It employs 24,000 workers and its annual sales reach 2 trillion won (US$1.65 billion). As labor costs in China have almost doubled, Chinese people are avoiding working at factories and the Chinese government is opposed to moving production plants to other countries, Hon Hai has decided to improve the productivity of the plant by efficiently managing the workforce through the smart factory technology.
In addition, the company plans to adopt the smart factory model in one out of 24 printer production lines at the Chongqing plant by the end of May and expand to all production lines later.
Park Jong-tae, head of the smart factory business division at SK C&C, said, “SK C&C’s smart factory platform allows production lines to decide for themselves with intelligent systems and maintain the best productivity all the time. The company will secure the position as a global total smart factory platform provider that covers global markets including Korea, China, India and Vietnam.”