• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2023

Purpose - This study investigates whether the inventory levels of Korean manufacturing firms increased or decreased from 2000 to 2019. We also explore the relationship between inventory levels and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach - We use panel data on KOSPI-listed firms in the manufacturing industry. We measure days in inventory as a proxy for inventory levels, and firm performance is measured by return on assets, return on sales, and EBITDA ratio. The panel data regression method is employed in our analysis. Findings - We find that days in inventory of Korean manufacturing firms significantly increased from 2000 to 2019, especially for raw materials and finished goods inventory. In addition, while days in inventory of large- and medium-sized firms were less than those of small-sized firms, the change in days in inventory of large- and medium-sized firms was positively significant over time. Moreover, the increase in days in inventory was more prevalent among industries related to foods, clothes, chemicals, and transportation. Finally, we show that the days in inventory are negatively related to firm performance. Research implications or Originality - While the Korean manufacturing industry has enormously grown over the last 20 years and managing inventory is critical in the manufacturing industry, our findings counter-intuitively show that the days in inventory of the Korean manufacturing industry had been gradually increased. We speculate that the increase in days in inventory is due to the Korean manufacturing firms' heavy reliance on global supply chains.

• Journal of Integrative Natural Science
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2021

On November 17, 2019, an infectious disease with symptoms of pneumonia, called the Wuhan virus at the time, occurred in Wuhan, China. Since then, the name has been changed to COVID-19, and the virus has spread all over the world, and the WHO has declared the highest warning level for infectious diseases, "Pandemic". The coronavirus has also caused great confusion in South Korea. This resulted in large infected people.The first confirmed cases occurred on January 20, 2020, and the number of infected patients is steadily increasing after experiencing several waves, and many corona confirmed cases are also occurring in 2021 after the year. As the whole world enters a pandemic, walls are created between people and people, companies and businesses, and countries and countries, and all growth stops or declines, including human relationships, domestic companies and industries, and foreign industries. As a result, society in general is experiencing a lot of stagnation. Among them, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the basis of all growth in Korea, and youth who are trying to contribute to the national development by entering society, are struggling to find jobs. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the difficulty of job hunting and the prospect of small and medium-sized businesses were not very good. In this situation, as the country's overall economic situation is poor, the vitality of SMEs has decreased a lot, the prospects are not good, so jobs are reduced, and there are many difficulties due to reluctance to hire new employees. In this study, with 2019 before the corona era and 2020 after the corona era, we compare SMEs before and after the corona era and overall job search and job search activities through average difference analysis, and whether they are affecting through correlation analysis. Through this, it suggests a direction to increase job search through corporate and government policies after raising the prospects of SMEs first.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.191-197
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• 2017

This development is for non-destructive machine using X-Ray source about detecting outline faults of below middle size products. The differentiation is product of research and development unspecialized small and medium-sized products using X-Ray light sources can check real time if the surface of an external fault of radiation dose reference, within the leakage. The speed control is possible by software solution. In addition, we're working on possibly block doors for worker safety and equipment at the same time that inner drive can be identified in the image. These principles, as a key enabler of the current inspection system such as the container is small to medium-sized parts - a long way from utilization level is possible. This research will give rise to major effects for other various non-destructive market industries except car-industry. The most important fact is that this developed non-destructive machine is controlled below $0.2micro-S{\mu}v$.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.1-18
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• 2021

Purpose - In this study, we explore the relationship between the degree of internationalization (DOI) and firm performance (DOI-P) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector. Specifically, we investigate whether the costs and benefits dynamics concerning the internationalization of SMEs differ between high-tech and non-high-tech industries. Design/methodology - We extend the prior literature on this relationship by employing 5-year data on 589 Korean SMEs in the manufacturing sector and examining the moderating impact of the industry characteristics. Our findings reveal a U-shaped relationship between the DOI and SME performance. High-tech SMEs demonstrate an inverted U-shaped relationship, whereas non-hightech SMEs exhibit a U-shaped relationship. Findings - Our findings illustrate the importance of the industry factor in testing the performance impact of the internationalization of Korean SMEs. By incorporating industry dynamics, our results indicate that the DOI-P relationship depends on the context of the industry in which an SME operates. High-tech SMEs also display a higher DOI but are outperformed by non-high-tech SMEs for the entire internationalization path, which implies that high-tech SMEs face more challenges than non-high-tech SMEs while seeking internationalization. Originality/value - The findings strongly validate that significant benefits exist for SMEs undertaking internationalization. We also employ the contextual framework contributing to increasing the understanding of the intrinsic value of internationalization and resolving the mixed results issue on the DOI-P relationship, by illustrating that the industry factor leads to different dynamics of costs and benefits of SME internationalization; it also determines the shape and direction of the relationship.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.93-103
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• 2011

Purpose: This study was conducted to assess reported industrial accidents and non-reported industrial accidents that took place in 63 small and medium sized manufacturing industries located in Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do in the year of 2009. Methods: During the period from January to December 2009, the number of industrial accidents that happened each month was examined according to the characteristics of industry, industrial accidents, workers with industrial accidents, treatment, as well as causes and treatment of the non-reported. Results: The total incidence rate of industrial accidents was 3.48%, of which only 0.31% reported. The incidence rate in packing and distribution among manufacturing workplace, and in the industry with 50~99 employees, was higher than the other groups. Of the non-reported, over 80% in required under 10 days of medical treatment, and 56% in required cost of less than 100,000 won. Kappa values were 0.771 concurrence in opinions for causes of non-reported, and 0.571 concurrence in opinions for management termination of non-reported between the employees and employer. Conclusion: It is suggested that more supportive policy and precise, nationwide survey on the actual state of industrial accidents, including non-reported cases, be implemented to efficiently manage industrial accidents.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.247-248
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• 2021

Recently, the government is pursuing to reduce the serious accidents in most industries, including the construction industry, by enacting laws on punishment. The accident rate tends to be depended on the size and type of construction sites, and the accidents occur frequently due to inadequate implementation of safety management system and management standards, especially, in small and medium-sized sites. This study has performed the profiling of 265,000 accident cases on construction sites by attribute analysis such as the ratio of days lost to work, and pattern of days lost to work compared to the size of the construction. It turned out that the proportion of accident cases was high mainly in small-scale construction sites, and long-term labor losses occurred. Shortly, it is necessary to establish an institutional standard for applying a realistic safety management cost calculation and management system centered on small-scale sites. Therefore, this study is expected to be used as fundamental data or guideline for developing a customized safety management and accident prevention system for a worker reflecting the conditions of a construction site in the future.

• World Technopolis Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.4.1-4.15
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• 2017

In 1995, the Republic of Korea started to establish Techno Park (TP) in order to develop the regional industry while promoting the balanced development of the land. By 2008, 18TPs were established nationwide and have become cradles for developing local industries. And recently evolved forms of TP such as Daedeok Techno Valley and Pangyo Techno Valley emerged. In addition, 19 Centers for Creative Economy and Innovation (CCEI) were established nationwide and Tech-Incubator Program for start-ups (TIPS) was introduced to support and mentor start-ups. TPs in Korea become bureaucratic in course of time, and the new trial of innovation of TP is needed. In Korea, professional TIPS-accelerators mentoring and investing start-ups have a history of only five years. But they support and mentor start-ups efficiently, and have obtained good results. In this paper, we propose that TP attract TIPS-accelerators actively and collaborate with each other to support and mentor start-ups and SMEs effectively.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.98-105
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• 2014

According to a simple survey on the current status of the assembly line design, it was found that trial and error methods on the basis of experiences have been used mainly in domestic manufacturing industries, even though there exist a lot of excellent line balancing studies. It seems that more practical researches should be carried out to develop user-oriented line balancing tools especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. This study presents a design of the line balancing tool which can support the line balancing tasks of nonspecialists. The proposed design tool is composed of three major modules: pre-process, line balancing, and post-process. In particular, pre-process and post-process are newly proposed to increase its ease of use. We applied the proposed design to a test problem and test result showed that our practical method may contribute to enhance the efficiency of production operations management.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.42-49
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• 2018

In steel industries, cold-rolled sheet manufacturing is one of the links between the front and rear important industries for national competitiveness and high value-added production. In particular, in small and medium-sized enterprises, one of the major problems is the carbonization phenomenon of the steel sheet during the annealing process. Carbonization occurring on the surface of the coil help reduce steel production. After conducting various experiments to identify the cause of carbonization on the surface of a cold-rolled steel, the following results were obtained: (1) An analysis of the rolling oil, which is used in the field, revealed it to contain approximately 40 ppm carbonized material. (2) A comparison of the thermal denaturation characteristics of the fresh rolling oil and using rolling oil by FT-IR analysis showed that thermal denaturation had occurred, as shown by the significant decrease in the relative intensity of the 2900 and $1750cm^{-1}$ peaks. (3) The thermal decomposition of the rolling oil took place for the rolling oil at approximately $220^{\circ}C$. Furthermore, annealing experiments at $200^{\circ}C$ showed that the carbonization phenomenon of the sample was not observed. On the other hand, carbonization was observed at temperatures higher than $240^{\circ}C$.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2017

In this paper, we examine the points of similarity and difference between Korea, Japan, and the USA in terms of the spin-off effects of space technology on cultural life. In Japan and the USA, spin-off effects of space development research by government funded research centers are diffusive while in Korea they are interruptive. Spin-offs of research results impact cultural life via technology transfer and commercialization in businesses. This is because the Korean aerospace industry has progressed largely based on an overall system, but the promotion of internal parts and sub-systems, which can trigger technological development and spin-off effects in manufacturing, has been neglected. In the case of the KARI, the government funded research center, we argue that it is necessary for KARI to devote more resources to transfer (or promote spin-offs of) space technology to small and medium-sized businesses and other industries.