When I went to a company that Samsung helped to produce masks… “I didn’t know it would get this much better”

Input 2021.02.28 06:00

Three’Samsung Men’ with more than 20 years of experience settled in nearby accommodation and went to work for 3 months
In three months, production increased by 40% per day and packaging line speed increased by 3 times.
Employees who say “Samsung should follow it” also “admired” the efficiency

Restek, a mask manufacturer located in the Small and Medium Business Complex in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon. The company, which has been making masks for six years, had a daily production of 110,000 sheets until February of last year, just before the corona started in earnest, but jumped 40% to 150,000 sheets in three months. At the moment when the Corona special price has been weakened, mask makers that stop production due to customer cutoff due to oversupply are appearing one after another, but Restek still maintains a daily production of 100,000 to 150,000.

The secret is that it was dispatched to the Restek factory for about a year from March last year. Samsung Electronics (005930)It was’tweezers’ tutoring from experienced people. On the 24th, the day after Samsung’s primary support was officially ended, the employees who met at the Restek factory gathered saying, “The situation at the company a year ago and now, not only in production but also in the way we work, has changed 180 degrees.” Restech plant manager Park Na-won said, “It was the first time that employees of other companies came to work every day and helped them like their own work. Everything from work flow to production improved.”

◇ 3 Samsung men with 20 years of experience, resident at the factory and tutoring with tweezers

When a scarcity of masks occurred in March last year due to the corona crisis, Samsung Electronics started to improve productivity by building a smart factory for mask makers. Restek, equipped with basic automatic mask production equipment and know-how, was selected as one of the support companies. Within a few days, three people in charge of Samsung Electronics’ machinery, production, and logistics were dispatched to the Restek plant as resident workers. They were experts with more than 20 years of experience. They settled in near the Restek factory and went to work 5 days a week for 3 months. Sometimes 5-6 additional people came to eat and stay together.

When three experienced Samsung Electronics residents lived every day in a’man’s factory’, the change began from the slightest. They took charge of the production line, packaging line, and logistics line, respectively, and communicated with the workers to understand what was needed right now. They looked at the factory drawings and suggested that there was a lot of wasted traffic and suggested to the factory manager to change the structure. When the locations of the machine room, packing room, and box room were changed, the movement of the staff accelerated.

In addition, by adjusting the facilities and rails that pass from production to packaging, the logistics flow from 45m was shortened to 25m, increasing the facility efficiency. After the mask comes out, from packaging to sealing and stamping the date, it is made to be’one-stop’ so that there is no interruption. The pavement table, the mobile cart and the pulley were all customized. The loading box was also changed so that space was not wasted due to the structure.

Plant manager Park said, “I couldn’t imagine that even these small things would be improved.” “It looks trivial,” he said, “but the work efficiency was inevitably improved because the items that we use the most in the factory were customized.”

The biggest help was mold replacement. Samsung employees made a hole in the exterior of the mask and saw that the mold that was essential to shape it was worn out, and the mold was produced by the Samsung Electronics Mold Development Center and supplied it in 7 days. At the time, Restek couldn’t place orders from domestic mold makers because mask makers were scattered even though they wanted to change the mold. Even if an order was made to China, exports were banned due to corona at the time, so it was not known how many months it would take. When the operation speed was increased, the defect rate dropped by more than half when the Chinese mold, which was easily broken, was changed to a domestic mold with good heat treatment and processing technology.

The touch of a Samsung employee touched the sensor that stamps the production date on the mask packaging surface. “The gap between the masks is too wide… It would be nice to change it to a sensor used at the Samsung factory.” The packaged mask was placed on the conveyor belt and the date stamped on the pavement surface. When the sensor was changed, the date was stamped on the package without any problem even if the gap between the masks was reduced from 10cm to 1cm. The narrower the gap allows more masks to be placed on the belt, resulting in a packaging line speed of more than three times faster.

◇ “Should I follow the words of a large company?” → “It’s nice to change it”

Restek’s employees didn’t welcome Samsung’s personnel from the beginning. Many employees showed strong reluctance to change the way they worked steadily over the years. From changing the work table, which was 160cm wide, to fit the mask packaging work, the objection came out from “I have been working well on a wide table, but why should I change it uncomfortable?”

“At first, most of the Samsung employees’ proposals were rejected by the employees, and it was embarrassing.” I came to get it, but let’s try it, and if it doesn’t, I’ll return it again, so let’s trust it.’ There was not little change from changing the work table to the work flow, but gradually, “it’s good to change it,” among employees gradually came out.

What surprised the employees was the training program provided by Samsung. Dozens of Samsung employees were additionally dispatched to the factory to provide various training necessary for work. One employee said, “I was trained on the attitude and way of dealing with work, and I was impressed that I was able to get the education that I thought was only received by large companies.

◇ Helping to expand the market as the mask boom breaks

The first support received by Restek ended on the 23rd, but plant manager Park said, “We plan to apply for the second support project as the support is systematic, not the end, but expanding to sales channels. Employees dispatched to Samsung visited the factory every week to check the situation after staying for three months. When the mask, which had sold up to 6 million sheets per month during the corona special period, dropped to 4 million sheets in November last year, Samsung connected the marketing department to find out the market. Thanks to this’after-sales service’, Restek is able to supply 200,000 masks per month to Samsung affiliates as well as to Samsung overseas business sites.

Restek’s neighboring companies continued to support the Samsung Smart Factory business while watching the changes in Restek. Nearby diagnostic kit manufacturers were selected for support and are currently receiving support from Samsung. “I honestly didn’t expect that I could get this much help, but above all, I was very grateful that the Samsung employees were thinking about the trivial things like our employees for several months and trying to listen to us a lot.” Starting with companies, the number of small and medium-sized businesses that coexist with large companies is increasing, so there is a great sense of responsibility to maintain this performance well.”