Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Creation of Smart Factory Standard Map

Over 2,000 Complex and Diverse Smart Factory Standards Can Be Viewed at a Glance

Standard Map of Smart Factories.
[Photo by Smart Factory Digital Library screen capture]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jonghwa] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced that it has created a Smart Factory Standards Map by consolidating smart manufacturing-related standards into one to strengthen the standard competitiveness of smart factory suppliers and to promote and expand smart factories utilizing standards.

More than 99% of the standards related to smart factories were established by various international organizations and bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association (MESA), making it very difficult for domestic SMEs to directly grasp the standards related to smart factories.

Accordingly, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, with expert advice from the Standards Technical Advisory Committee, disclosed a standards map in 2019 that classified a total of 2,011 smart factory standards, including 1,314 international standards, 4 national standards, and 693 de facto standards, into five major process areas and six major technology fields to enable SMEs to easily utilize smart factory standards.

The Smart Factory Standards Map consists of a total of six sheets: one comprehensive map showing all five major process areas and five detailed maps for each process area. Each process area is further divided into six major technology fields, and importance is indicated with stars considering market utilization, scalability, and latest technologies. The comprehensive map presents only representative standards with importance, while the detailed maps for each process area display all standards relevant to that area.

Although convergence and connectivity between technologies are important in smart factories, domestic smart factories have been built focusing on individual products and technologies, so when suppliers differ, data exchange between heterogeneous solutions does not occur, causing compatibility issues among equipment, systems, and data, which often act as obstacles to the advancement of smart factories.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups expects that the newly released Smart Factory Standards Map will serve as a milestone for SMEs to easily utilize standards and secure interoperability using standards.

Park Jongchan, Head of the Smart Manufacturing Innovation Planning Group at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "Smart factories, which are built step-by-step from the basics to advanced stages, are a very important area for securing interoperability between heterogeneous equipment, systems, or data, and the spread of standards is necessary for global market entry. We expect the Smart Factory Standards Map to be an opportunity to increase domestic companies' interest in and utilization of standards."

The Smart Factory Standards Map has been available for free download to anyone from the Smart Factory Project Management System and Digital Library since the 14th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.