• The Journal of Information Systems
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.205-224
• /
• 2023

Purpose This study investigates the impact of organizational characteristics on organizational performance through case studies of smart factory implementation in the context of Korean small and medium Enterprises (SMEs). To achieve this goal, this study adopts the smart factory index of KOSMO (Korea Smart Manufacturing Office) established by Korean Ministry of SMEs and Startups. We visited 3 firms implemented smart factory projects. This study presents the results of field study in detail with evaluation criteria on how organizational competences like AI technology adoption and facility automation can be exploited to positively influence organizational performance through smart factory implementation. Design/methodology/approach There are not so many results of empirical studies related to smart factories in Korea. This is because organizational support and user involvement are required for facility AI platform service beyond factory automation after the start of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Korean government's KOSMO (Korean Smart Manufacturing Office) has developed and proposed a level measurement index for smart factory implementation. This study conducts case studies based on the level measurement method proposed by KOSMO in the process of conducting case studies of three companies belonging to the root and mechanic industries in Korea. Findings The findings indicate that organizational competences, such as facility AI platform adoption and user involvement, are antecedents to influence smart factory implementation, while smart factory implementation has significant relationship with organizational performance. This study provides a better understanding of the connection between organizational competences and organizational performance through smart factory case studies. This study suggests that SMEs should focus on enhancing their organizational competences for improving organizational performance through implementing smart factory projects.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.42 no.1
• /
• pp.1-25
• /
• 2017

By applying the AHP(Analytic Hierarchy Process), we have analyzed the importance and the order for priorities to the management risk factors of Korean SMEs & Venture companies in China. The major management risk factors of manufacturing companies were the rise in labor costs followed by fierce competition in the marketplace, problems involved with human resource management and the rise in the cost of materials. In the case of companies manufacturing electronic products, the rise of labor costs and alteration in government's tax policy were seen as the main risk factors. In the case of chemical product manufacturing companies, the reinforcement of environmental protection law and in automobile component manufacturing companies, apart from the rise in labor cost, the increase in raw materials costs were analyzed as the main risk factors. While considering the time period, the main risk factors of the companies that entered China in the 1990's were fierce competition and alteration in government's tax policy and for the companies that entered China in the 2000's, increase in raw material cost, the rise in labor cost etc were analyzed to be the main risk management factors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computer Information Conference
• /
• 2017.07a
• /
• pp.190-193
• /
• 2017

인더스트리 4.0 또는 4차 산업 혁명이 큰 화두이고, 그 중심에 제조업의 스마트 공장으로의 변화는 필수불가결의 현상으로 이해되고 있는 상황이다. 이에 한국 정부에서는 스마트공장 보급 사업을 활발하게 추진하여 한국 내 중소기업을 대상으로 스마트 공장 관련 기술을 확산하고자 노력하고 있다. 하지만, 여전히 많은 기업들은 스마트 공장 구축 사업을 받아들이려는 의지가 부족하고 자발적으로 받아들이지 않고 있어, 정부의 사업 확대에 어려움을 가지고 있다. 따라서 스마트 공장 보급 사업을 확대하고 한국 제조업의 경쟁력을 강화를 도모하는데 있어서 과연 어떤 요인이 중소기업들로 하여금 정부의 스마트 공장 관련 사업에 참여하여 관련 기술을 받아들이고, 기업에 적용하게 되는지 분석은 중요한 의미를 가질 것이다. 본 연구는 지난 2년간 스마트 공장 관련 기술을 도입한 기업을 대상으로 한 실증 연구를 통해서 실증 연구를 통해서 스마트 공장 관련 기술의 수용을 위한 중요한 요인이 무엇인지 검증하고, 향후 스마트 공장 관련 기술의 보급 확산을 위한 정책 결정과 사업 추진에 효율적인 추진 방향을 제시하고자 한다.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
• /
• v.41 no.2
• /
• pp.32-46
• /
• 2018

Research in the Servitization of Manufacturing has become focused more on cases than concepts over the past decade. This is because governments have emphasized some practical research with policies to support their industries. Manufacturers need differentiated strategies to gain competitiveness by servitization in the global market. They should examine how common servitization has become in the same industries and markets. They should also make sure how it works and for what purpose it is done since it is necessary to make the best decision to be able to distribute the limited resources most effectively to defeat the global competitors. South Korea has the sixth largest trade volume in the world, but Korean SMEs' marketing capabilities fall short compared to that of major global companies. This paper seeks to develop the proper model and its application for the servitization with global cases which are recommended for Korean SMEs. They need to check the urgency in servitization according to their products, industries and target markets. In addition, factors such as purposes, time and types of the servitization are examined to see how they are related each other. The most significant implication of this study is that the processes for early-stage companies in servitazation are modeled to help them make the best choices.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.61-75
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of quality management system requirements, a management innovation technique, on business performance to secure the competitiveness of SMEs in an environment of increasing uncertainty in the global economy and intensifying competition. To this end, a survey was conducted on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating a quality management system, and statistical analysis was performed through validity and reliability analysis, regression analysis, and group analysis using IBM SPSS 26.0. As a result of the study, it was found that planning, operation, support, and improvement, which are the core requirements of a quality management system, have a positive effect on business performance. In addition, through group analysis, it was found that the effect of quality management system requirements on business performance varies according to the level of the company. This means that the importance of quality management requirements required for strategy establishment varies according to the quality management introduction level of small and medium-sized manufacturers, and it can be used for small and medium-sized manufacturers to set strategic directions.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.45-53
• /
• 2024

A Smart factories are systems that enable quick response to customer demands, reduce defect rates, and maximize productivity. They have evolved from manual labor-intensive processes to automation and now to cyber-physical systems with the help of information and communication technology. However, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still unable to implement even the initial stages of smart factories due to various environmental and economic constraints. Additionally, there is a lack of awareness and understanding of the concept of smart factories. To address this issue, the Cooperation-based Smart Factory Construction Support Project was launched. This project is a differentiated support project that provides customized programs based on the size and level of the company. Research has been conducted to analyze the impact of this project on participating and non-participating companies. The study aims to determine the effectiveness of the support policy and suggest efficient measures for improvement. Furthermore, the research aims to provide direction for future support projects to enhance the manufacturing competitiveness of SMEs. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the overall manufacturing industry and drive innovation.

• Proceedings of the Safety Management and Science Conference
• /
• 2011.04a
• /
• pp.731-746
• /
• 2011

The successful and sustainable growth of SMEs depends on their ability of strengthen their competitiveness in quality and cost and service more than anything else as a fundamental of operation. Among these key competitive factors of SMEs, quality is the most critical factor in manufacturing business fields. Because quality strongly influence cost and service performance on this manufacturing business field. There are many different ways to improve the quality performance but it needs proper management decision to choose the best way what can maximize outputs with minimum inputs. And it needs effective measurement methods and some indicators to analysis the quality performance properly. The quality cost is one of the simplest key indicators to measure the quality performance and the effectiveness of quality related management decisions. The major purpose of this study is to diagnose the categorized current level of actual quality cost of local SMEs to maximize their quality management effectiveness through comparing their level with others what's expressed in early studies. In this study, through survey on local SMEs, we found that their average annual quality cost ratio versus turnover - Total amount of annual quality cost divided by annual turnover - is around 3.69% excluded some SME's performances what have different quality control measures with others. And we found some results what corresponded with the early studies on the correlations between those categorized quality costs factors and some discrepancies between some of the literature model and the early case study results as follows. There were negative correlations between the Prevention costs and the External failure costs, and the Appraisal costs and the External failure costs, and there was positive correlation between the Appraisal costs and Internal failure costs same as early studies. But, we couldn't found any strong negative correlations between the Cost of control - Preventive costs & Appraisal costs - and the Cost of Failure of control - Internal & External failure costs -. It reveals not only the lack of effectiveness on their preventive or appraisal activities but also it can reveal there were so many effective ways to prevent the failure costs properly such as some innovative investment on Factory automation includes Error Proofing and more preventive actions to improve the effectiveness of the typical management methods likes CE (Concurrent Engineering), APQP (Advanced Product Quality Planning), FMEA (Failure Mode & Effect Analysis) etc.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.165-178
• /
• 2022

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze and provide implications for the impact on performance, focusing on Environmental Sustainability, innovation orientation, and integrated activities among the factors necessary for sustainable management of SMEs. 366 copies obtained from executives and representatives above the department head level of domestic manufacturing SMEs through professional research companies were used for the final analysis, and the research hypothesis was verified using SmartPLS 3.0 and SPSS 25. As a result of the analysis, it was confirmed that Environmental Sustainability had a significant effect on social integration and technology integration, and innovation orientation had a significant effect on social integration and technology integration. In addition, it was confirmed that social integration and technology integration factors had a significant effect on the sustainability performance of SMEs. Based on these research results, theoretical, practical, and future research directions could be presented. According to the results of this study, it can be expected that manufacturing SMEs will be able to receive help in establishing strategies related to innovation orientation, social integration, and technology integration to achieve sustainable performance.

• Korea Trade Review
• /
• v.43 no.4
• /
• pp.155-175
• /
• 2018

This study estimates the technical efficiency and total factor productivity(TFP) of and analyzes the relationship between TFP and exports for Korean manufacturing companies from 2000 to 2016. Specially, TFP is decomposed into Technical Change(TC), Technical Efficiency Change (TEC), and Sale Effect(SE), and compared between large and small enterprises. First, in the case of technical efficiency, the Korean economy has been very vulnerable to external shocks, such as the sharp decline following the 2008 financial crisis. The efficiency of the electronics, automobile, and machinery sectors is low and needs to be improved. In addition, the technological efficiency of large enterprises is higher than that of SMEs in most manufacturing sub-sectors except for non-ferrous metals. In the case of TFP, most changes are due to TC, and the effective combination of labor, capital and the effect of scale have little effect, suggesting that improvement of internal structure is urgent. In addition, volatility due to the impact of the financial crisis in 2008 was much larger in SMEs than in large companies, so external economic impacts are more greater for SMEs than large enterprises. The relationship between TFP decomposition factors and exports shows that TC has a positive effect only on exports of SMEs. Therefore, in order to increase exports, in the case of SMEs, R&D support to promote technological development is needed. In the case of large companies, it is necessary to establish differentiated strategies for each export market, competitor company, and item to link efficiency and scale effect of exports.

• Information Systems Review
• /
• v.20 no.4
• /
• pp.79-96
• /
• 2018

This study started by focusing on the internalization of the technology appraisal model into the credit rating model to increase the discriminative power of the credit rating model not only for SMEs but also for all companies, reflecting the items related to the financial stability of the enterprises among the technology appraisal items. Therefore, it is aimed to verify whether the technology appraisal model can be applied to identify high-stability SMEs in advance. We classified companies into industries (manufacturing vs. non-manufacturing) and the age of company (initial vs. non-initial), and defined as a high-stability company that has achieved an average debt ratio less than 1/2 of the group for three years. The C5.0 was applied to verify the discriminant power of the model. As a result of the analysis, there is a difference in importance according to the type of industry and the age of company at the sub-item level, but in the mid-item level the R&D capability was a key variable for discriminating high-stability SMEs. In the early stage of establishment, the funding capacity (diversification of funding methods, capital structure and capital cost which taking into account profitability) is an important variable in financial stability. However, we concluded that technology development infrastructure, which enables continuous performance as the age of company increase, becomes an important variable affecting financial stability. The classification accuracy of the model according to the age of company and industry is 71~91%, and it is confirmed that it is possible to identify high-stability SMEs by using technology appraisal items.