At Sungsimdang, the famed bakery in Daejeon, the hands making fried soboro buns are changing from people to artificial intelligence (AI) robots.
Minister Kim Jung-kwan of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources on the 27th visited the Sungsimdang store at Lotte Department Store in Daejeon to inspect a demonstration site of an "AI Factory" that applies AI to the fried soboro production process, and held a "manufacturing AI rollout roundtable that the public can feel."
The core of this demonstration is deploying AI robots to the fried soboro manufacturing process, where high-temperature, high-intensity repetitive work is done. A series of processes from dough loading to flipping the buns, defect determination by size and level of frying, and finished goods packaging will be automated. The goal is to improve productivity by 20%. The project involves Rosso, the operator of Sungsimdang, AI company Roy Labs, and robotics company Intertek.
The Sungsimdang case is part of the "M.AX (manufacturing AI transformation) Alliance" public-impact project launched by the ministry last September. Using the day's event as a springboard, the ministry unveiled a total of 10 public-impact AI projects. In addition to Sungsimdang, these include: ▲ AI robotization of fermentation tank agitation for Andong soju at Heogok Brewery in Andong ▲ an AI-based defective meat screening and fixed-quantity packaging system at Jangchungdong Wang Jokbal Bossam ▲ a robot demonstration for supply item sorting and packaging at the Army smart logistics center.
The Minister said, "We confirmed that a vision AI model that detects defects in semiconductor substrates is technically similar to a model that determines defects in soboro bread," and added, "We will expand support to boldly apply M.AX not only to core manufacturing or high-tech industries but across the broader economy."
The ministry supplied 102 AI factories cumulatively through last year to key sectors such as semiconductors, steel, automobiles, and shipbuilding, and plans to supply 100 new ones this year as well, while expanding AI adoption to facilities closely tied to daily life, including food, cosmetics, and hotels.