President Moon Jae-in visited POSCO ‘s lighthouse factory, a sole one in Korea, and looked around the spot for smart innovations and win-win cooperation with small businesses and encouraged executives and staff on Jan. 9.
Just as the lighthouse illuminates the dark night sky, the lighthouse factory represents a way to lead the future of the world’s manufacturing industry by actively introducing core technologies of the fourth industrial revolution such as Internet of Things, AI and big data. The World Economic Forum (WEF) announced POSCO as the world’s "Lighthouse Factory" in July last year.
The WEF said the reason behind the selection is that POSCO is applying artificial intelligence technology to enhance productivity and quality in the steel industry and building a smart factory platform unique to the steel industry through co-prosperity, such as building an ecosystem of cooperation with universities, small and medium-sized companies and start-ups.
At the event, POSCO Chairman Choi Jung-woo and executives and employees who participated in the smart factory project guided the president and Park Young-sun, minister of SMEs and startups, and introduced the status of POSCO's smart factory drive.
POSCO said it is using its own smart factory platform, PosFrame, to collect and stereotype data from factories that have accumulated on-site experience and know-how over the past 50 years, and to create optimal process conditions to implement smart steel mills that control the production process in real time.
POSCO’s core infrastructure for the convergence of steel and smart IT technologies, the status of promoting win-win cooperation, and the process of producing actual iron from second furnace, a state-of-the-art smart furnace with AI technology, were also introduced.
“We will continue to provide world-class premium products and services with smart technology, share and support the smart factory experience with small and medium-sized companies, and become more active in enhancing the competitiveness of our industrial ecosystem," said POSCO Chairman Choi.