Samsung helps reduce faulty testing kits amid virus outbreak

“SolGent,” a manufacturer of COVID-19 testing kits located in Daejeon’s District of Yuseong, has increased both production quality and quantity since last month when it started producing its own containers for testing kits. Coupled with its efforts to make its factory smart, the shift has enabled the company to swiftly respond to the coronavirus.

Two working stations with shelves were empty on Wednesday. Two employees had to check containers one by one for foreign substances all day long until last month, which became redundant with the introduction of a smart factory system.

SolGent used to import containers from Germany. However, with the coronavirus outbreak causing disruption to imports, the company switched to a domestic supplier, which, unfortunately, produced 40 percent defective products. This severely limited SolGent’s production, until it received support from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the KBIZ Korea Federation of SMEs and Samsung Electronics’ “smart factory” program, which helped the testing kit manufacturer simplify its production process.

“Samsung Electronics identified the problems and came up with the most effective solution,” said SolGent CEO Seok Do-su at a “smart factory innovation briefing” on Wednesday. “It has given us wings.”

After helping the mask manufacturer alleviate the short supply of masks, Samsung Electronics has become a mentor once again. The smart factory program is run by Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong who asked to step up the efforts to help small and medium-sized businesses. Four mask manufacturers saw their production increase by 51 percent after Samsung provided support for them.


Ho-Kyeong Kim kimhk@donga.com