{"id":126587,"date":"2026-09-06T11:01:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/126587\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:01:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:01:12","slug":"korea-alps-replaces-human-eyes-with-ai-to-spot-defects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/126587\/","title":{"rendered":"Korea Alps Replaces Human Eyes With AI to Spot Defects"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AnAn employee of Korea Alps inspects the “AI vision inspection” process, in which AI determines in real time whether camera-photographed components are defective, at a plant in the Hanam General Industrial Complex in Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, on Nov. 27. Gwangju \u2014 Kim Ji-won<\/p>\n

GWANGJU \u2014 At Korea Alps’ plant inside the Hanam General Industrial Complex in Gwangju on the 27th of last month, freshly stamped auto parts moved one by one in front of a machine vision unit at one end of the production line. As the camera photographed each product, artificial intelligence\u5224 determined whether it was defective. The scene stood in contrast to workers elsewhere in the plant holding products up to magnifying glasses one at a time. “Since this is still a verification stage, a worker inspects each item once more, but once the system is more advanced, the machine will remove defective items immediately so that only good products move to the next process,” a company official said.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1987, Korea Alps makes automotive electronic components as well as other electrical and electronic parts. Because it develops products to order for its customers, the company runs roughly 300 production lines. Most are automated, but the final inspection is still done by people. About 40% of the plant’s floor staff are assigned to inspection. That is why the company is pursuing an AI transformation, or AX, to replace sensory inspection that relies on human sight, touch and other senses with AI.<\/p>\n

In September last year, Korea Alps was selected as the flagship lead plant for the Gwangju Advanced Smart Green AX Demonstration Industrial Complex project, led by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation. The goal is to demonstrate AI technology at automakers and their suppliers in the Gwangju area and then spread the results across all 14 industrial complexes in the region.<\/p>\n

\"KoreaKorea Alps employees examine components produced at one side of the plant one by one with magnifying glasses to weed out defective items on Nov. 27. Gwangju \u2014 Kim Ji-won<\/p>\n

The AI vision inspection system was introduced to improve the accuracy of quality checks and cut costs. Because defects were judged by workers’ eyes, the false defect rate \u2014 the share of good products wrongly flagged as defective \u2014 reached 5%. Handling those cases alone cost an average of 5 million won a month. The company plans to lower that rate below 0.33% through AX.<\/p>\n

The other pillar is autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs. At present, workers carry parts themselves across a plant covering about 46,000 square meters. “Once AMRs are linked to the production system, inventory management becomes easier and unnecessary losses are reduced,” said Kim Pil-gon, head of Korea Alps’ production innovation office. The company aims to add three more AMRs by next year and to apply AI vision inspection to half of all its equipment by 2028. Staff currently tied up in inspection will be shifted to production technology roles.<\/p>\n

Kim described the project as “a chance for manufacturing to survive,” saying Chinese manufacturing is now advancing three to four times faster than before. “Korea is ultimately a manufacturing-centered country, so it has to build manufacturing competitiveness,” the office head said. “If AX lifts manufacturing to the next level, national competitiveness will rise as well.”<\/p>\n

Spreading the technology to suppliers is another task. Because auto production is divided among multiple suppliers, changing one company alone makes it hard to raise overall productivity. For small and mid-sized suppliers, investing first in unproven technology is a burden. “If we show results, other companies that have seen the effect will also move to invest,” the office head said, expressing confidence that the project would succeed.<\/p>\n

A joint project by The Seoul Economic Daily and the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An employee of Korea Alps inspects the “AI vision inspection” process, in which AI determines in real time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[61797,50,61800,19643,61798,61799,61796,61801],"class_list":["post-126587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-ai-vision-inspection","tag-alps","tag-auto-parts-manufacturing","tag-autonomous-mobile-robots","tag-ax-transformation","tag-gwangju-industrial-complex","tag-korea-alps","tag-korea-industrial-complex-corporation"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117223757603007445","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}