The Ministry of SMEs and Startups visited a K-beauty smart factory on the 26th as the first stop of the "smart manufacturing innovation on-site tour by industry" to review digital transformation (DX) results and discuss ways to spread manufacturing innovation with beauty industry officials.
Among the "smart manufacturing innovation" policies being promoted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), the representative smart factory construction support program targets all manufacturing industries. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) is particularly focusing support—linked with relevant ministries and local governments—on export strategy items of small and medium-sized corporations that have secured competitiveness in the global market, such as beauty, food, and fashion.
In the K-beauty field, it is collaborating with the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety to provide a package of smart factory construction and consulting for certification under the "Cosmetic Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP)." Through the North Chungcheong Manufacturing AI Center, it is also pursuing AI model development and validation in convergence bio fields such as cosmetics, and training for incumbent workers.
The "inter-ministerial smart factory construction project" in the K-beauty field, which began last year, selected 18 cosmetics manufacturing corporations and provided about 3.2 billion won in support. For the selected corporations, DX mentors and experts from advanced cosmetics corporations are being matched to support AI adoption and more. This year, interest and demand on the ground appear to have expanded significantly, with the number of corporations hoping to participate more than doubling from last year.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) plans to conduct on-site tours by industry, such as food and fashion, in a relay format to spread smart manufacturing innovation in leading export items of small and medium-sized corporations like K-beauty.
Yegreena, which the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) visited that day, is a cosmetics ODM specialist corporations based in Incheon. By building a smart factory, it collects and analyzes production data in real time and has introduced an automated cosmetics filling system. As a result, it increased productivity and drastically reduced defect rates.
At the on-site roundtable, not only cosmetics manufacturing corporations but also manufacturing corporations with related technologies such as cosmetics ingredients, containers, and microneedles (micro-needles) attended. Participants discussed smart manufacturing innovation plans across the beauty industry supply chain and shared on-site difficulties and policy proposals.
Minister Han Seong-sook of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) said, "Cosmetics, the No. 1 export item for small and medium-sized corporations, achieved a record-high export performance last year," and emphasized, "For the global, sustainable growth of K-beauty, it is important to smarten manufacturing sites—the basic capacity—adopt AI, and invest in technology development." She added, "To drive smart manufacturing innovation in the K-beauty industry, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) will newly support the development of multi-AI agent technology in the beauty field for process and quality optimization and will prepare beauty industry-specific AI transition guidelines."