Korea Federation of SMEs Conducts 'Manufacturing Innovation Excellence Company Benchmarking'

Visit to TurboLink, an Excellent Smart Factory Builder
Sharing Best Practices in Manufacturing Innovation

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (Kbiz) announced on the 27th that it conducted the '2024 Small and Medium Enterprise Manufacturing Innovation Excellence Benchmarking' by visiting TurboLink, an outstanding smart factory company located in Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do.

The 'Small and Medium Enterprise Manufacturing Innovation Excellence Benchmarking' is a project promoted by Kbiz to foster a ‘virtuous cycle of growth’ where the SME sector can be mutually stimulated and grow together by spreading best practices of management environment improvement and technology/process innovation companies. This year, Kbiz arranged opportunities to visit manufacturing innovation excellence companies in regions such as Honam and Chungcheong to share and discuss successful manufacturing innovation stories.

Through the benchmarking event held that day, TurboLink was identified as a company that produces ‘fluid lubrication bearings’ used in generators and pumps. Due to the nature of the industry, where each product contains dozens of parts, as orders increased, production management became more difficult, resulting in accumulated inventory and a decline in on-time delivery rates. In response, TurboLink applied for the 'Large and Small Win-Win Smart Factory Support Project' promoted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Kbiz, and Samsung Electronics.

Following the advice of Samsung Electronics mentors, TurboLink upgraded its system to enable production planning and inventory management by process, improved the work environment through space efficiency, shortened production lead time by about 30%, and increased the on-time delivery rate from 36% to 62%, generating approximately 500 million KRW in management benefits.

Hyuncheon Ha, CEO of TurboLink, said, “Previously, it was difficult to meet customer delivery deadlines, and inventory piled up on-site, causing a lack of space and a vicious cycle. Thanks to the smart factory support project, not only has productivity improved, but all employees are satisfied with the improved work environment. We will continue to advance the smart factory system.”

Jeon Eui-jun, Head of the Smart Industry Office at Kbiz, said, “The benchmarking of manufacturing innovation excellence cases is highly satisfying for participating SMEs because they can directly learn manufacturing innovation know-how and trial and error from senior companies on-site. We will continue to strive to establish a voluntary virtuous cycle system by spreading smart factory achievements with SME cooperatives as the focal point.”

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