People visiting the Robot Technology Show 2026 held at the COEX Exhibition Center in Seoul, South Korea on June 10, 2026. The event will showcase the latest advances in robotics technology. Photo provided by: JEON HEON-KYUN/EPA
June 28 (Asia Today) — As global demand for power distribution equipment soars, HD Hyundai Electric’s state-of-the-art Korean factory is achieving close to 100% on-time delivery rates, thanks to artificial intelligence and automated robots.
The company’s Cheongju distribution campus, which began operations in February, uses AI-based production planning and automated logistics to coordinate manufacturing from material arrival to final shipment.
When a customer order enters the system, the material is automatically retrieved and divided into containers in a 26-foot-high warehouse. An autonomous mobile robot then calculates the most efficient route and transports the material to the production line.
The 21-acre campus is designed as a flexible smart factory capable of manufacturing approximately 50,000 product configurations on shared production lines.
The company’s products range from air circuit breakers and vacuum circuit breakers used in power plants and industrial facilities to hardwired circuit breakers commonly installed in homes and commercial buildings.
The factory’s annual production capacity is 8.5 million units.
Our flexible production system allows multiple models to be assembled on one line, reducing product changeover time and improving assembly efficiency.
The factory’s centralized production system, called Single Plan, uses AI demand forecasting to connect sales forecasts with production schedules and supplier orders.
Kim Se-young, who oversees the design and production of low-voltage and medium-voltage products, said, “AI allows sales forecasts to go through the sales and business planning process and become accurate production plans.”
“Our suppliers can also prepare the necessary parts in advance based on those plans,” Kim said.
The system manages production data for approximately 50,000 product variants and helps reduce unused material and prevent bottlenecks while meeting customer deadlines.
The robot executes the plan established by the AI system.
Depalletizing robots separate materials into containers in automated warehouses. Autonomous mobile robots then deliver the parts to the production line two to three days before they are needed.
The campus operates 12 autonomous mobile robots, 10 automated case processing robots, and 20 logistics shuttles.
The automation rate of low-voltage equipment production lines, including circuit breakers, has reached 95%. Machine vision systems also inspect product surfaces, reducing defects even in environments characterized by low-volume production and frequent model changes.
The company said the automated campus will help it compete for growing global demand from building AI data centers and investing in the power grid.
Delivery times are becoming increasingly important as customers seek to secure power equipment through long-term supply contracts and reduce supply chain risk.
HD Hyundai Electric has raised its overall equipment efficiency, a measure of factory productivity, from 58% to approximately 75%.
The company aims to increase this number to 90% by 2030 and expand its annual production capacity of low and medium voltage circuit breakers to 13 million units.
There are also plans to gradually relocate production equipment for switchboards and distribution transformers from the Ulsan factory to Cheongju, consolidating key parts of the power distribution supply chain into one campus.
“Customers are increasingly looking to secure supply in advance through long-term contracts to reduce supply chain risks,” said Lee Chang-ho, executive vice president and head of power distribution business at the company.
“The on-time delivery rate for the Cheongju campus project is currently approaching 100%,” Lee said.
Lee said the company named the facility Cheongju Power Distribution Campus, rather than just a circuit breaker factory, because the company plans to eventually manufacture a broader range of power distribution products at the facility.
“With new demand from data centers, we expect the power distribution business to become one of the company’s growth engines and play a central role in improving earnings stability,” he said.
— Asia Today reported. Translation by UPI
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Korea original report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260629010009840
