Kia (000270.KS) has reduced annual labor hours for equipment maintenance by 3,750 hours since introducing digital twin technology at its electric vehicle production plant in August 2024. The operational innovation resulted from real-time monitoring of equipment status and anomalies in a computer-generated virtual space.
According to Hyundai Motor (005380.KS) Group documents obtained by The Seoul Economic Daily on January 12, the labor required for body production line maintenance at Kia's Gwangmyeong EVO Plant in Gyeonggi Province has dropped to one-third of pre-digital twin levels. Labor hours, or "gongsu" in Korean, is a unit that converts work volume into total labor time and serves as a key metric for measuring labor and labor costs in the manufacturing industry.
Previously, addressing equipment malfunctions on the body production line required an average of four workers and 350 minutes of labor. At the Gwangmyeong EVO Plant, resolving a single error now requires only four workers and 100 minutes. Based on these calculations, Kia concluded that 3,750 labor hours were saved annually in resolving equipment malfunctions at the plant. The figure was derived by assuming 900 equipment malfunctions per year and multiplying by the 250 minutes saved per incident. For Kia, this represents a reduction of 3,750 hours in labor devoted to equipment normalization annually, freeing workers for other tasks.
The efficiency improvement at the Gwangmyeong EVO Plant exemplifies the benefits of applying digital twin technology to manufacturing. Digital twin refers to technology that replicates real-world objects and spaces as data in a computer environment, creating a virtual twin. Kia established a system to monitor equipment malfunctions and anomalies in real time through a virtual space, streamlining maintenance operations. Hyundai AutoEver (307950.KS), the system integration subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group, was responsible for building the digital twin at the Gwangmyeong EVO Plant. ▷Related article on Page 3
