LG Electronics ramps up its smart factory operations

LG Electronics has overhauled its home appliance manufacturing facility in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province to become an “AI-based automation factory,” where robots carry and assemble pieces to make home appliance products such as refrigerators.

LG Electronics completed the first phase of reconstructing its home appliance manufacturing production building on Thursday at LG Smart Park in Changwon, where home appliance production lines that used to run separately in different buildings are combined under one roof. The integrated production building will now be the assembly line for fridges and water purifiers. LG SIGNATURE refrigerators, the company’s premium flagship line, will be produced here.

LG Electronics has invested a total of 800 billion won to overhaul its Changwon-1 factory that manufactures kitchen appliances into a smart factory. The first phase of the project, into which a total of 480 billion won was invested over the course of four years, has been revamped into an integrated production building that started the initial stage operations from today.

At the smart factory, robots replace humans in tasks like assembling parts, packaging, and faulty product inspections. Human workers are in charge of monitoring the production lines. The big data-powered integrated monitoring system has been introduced to increase production efficiency.

LG Electronics plans to complete the construction of a 336,000-square-meter automated smart factory operating under two buildings with a total of six production lines. According to LG, when the whole construction is completed, the plant’s annual production capacity would increase from the current two million units to more than three million units.


will@donga.com