POSCO DX : holds conference on Industrial Robot

POSCO DX is making tangible results in its project to apply industrial robots to high-risk and high-intensity sites to improve safe working environments and productivity.

POSCO Group is actively promoting the introduction of industrial robots to upgrade production sites with smart factories to safer workplaces and realize productivity and quality improvement. To this end, POSCO DX launched the POSCO Group Robot Council last year, which includes POSCO Holdings, POSCO, POSCO E&C, POSCO Future M, RIST, and POSTECH, and is operating a group-level cooperation system.

On the 15th, a conference was held at the POSCO DX Pangyo office under the theme of "Robot, the Accelerator of Digital Transformation." The move is aimed at sharing the latest technologies and market trends, and sharing cases of robot applications such as steel mills, construction sites, and secondary battery materials to find ways to expand them in the future. At the conference, robot companies such as FANUC and Dime Research, including 10 POSCO group companies, as well as industry-academic officials such as KAIST and the Korea Institute of Production Technology, participated in the presentation of their solutions and technologies.

The POSCO Group Robot Council is responsible for finding sites where robots should be applied first to POSCO Group's workplaces and promoting joint R&D and pilot projects to secure optimal technologies and solutions. Within the council, POSCO DX develops robot technologies and solutions and is in charge of overall robot automation, including design, construction, and operation for field applications. In particular, R&D is carried out in cooperation with POSCO to spread solutions verified at steel mill sites to other industrial sites and actively promote external commercialization.

POSCO Group is speeding up the introduction of robots into steel mills, construction sites, and secondary battery materials this year. Until recently, POSCO DX and POSCO Gwangyang Steelworks have carried out a project to apply robots to galvanizing processes. In the plating process of coating zinc (Zn) on the surface of an iron plate, it is essential to remove foreign substances in a high-temperature port in which zinc is dissolved. The high-risk work performed by humans at high-temperature sites has been unmanned so that robots with image analysis AI can find and remove foreign substances. It plans to apply robots to replace ladle nozzles in the performance process, which is a high-risk manual work in the steel mill, while continuously expanding them to other sites in the steel mill.

POSCO E&C is the first Korean construction company to introduce underwater drones and use them for safety and quality control of marine construction. In addition, the four-legged walking robot will be equipped with harmful gas sensors and thermal imaging cameras to remotely inspect dangerous areas, while the robot will be applied to various construction sites, including tunnel lock bolt construction automation robots, steel bridges, and LNG tank welding robots. POSCO FutureM is applying industrial robots to automate production of secondary battery material factories and unmanned transportation robots (AGVs) to automate logistics.

A POSCO DX official said, "The introduction of robots is accelerating to ensure safety at industrial sites and respond to population structure changes. POSCO DX, which has been leading smart factories, plans to lead the spread of robots across the industry through cooperation between POSCO Group and promising technology companies and research institutes."