South KoreaManufacturing2024–2025Hallacast
AI quality prediction under the autonomous factory programme
Auto-parts caster Hallacast cut its defect rate from 10% to 6.5% with AI quality prediction under a government programme
Problem
Hallacast makes moulds and lightweight-material parts for vehicles, supplying Korean large companies and global carmakers. Its casting process carried defect and safety risks, and each worker could look after only one machine. Among Korean small manufacturers, upfront cost is the most cited barrier to AI: 44.2% named it in a government survey.
Approach
The company joined the SME ministry's autonomous factory programme in 2024 and applied it in two stages. In the first year it built automated lines 1 and 2 and piloted an AI quality-prediction system; in 2025 it added lines 3 and 4, a digital-twin simulation and stronger AI anomaly detection. Robots were placed in the casting process to reduce accident risk.
Results
Takeaway
Public funding spread the cost over two years and let the company start with a pilot before extending AI to more lines. The ministry's reported results combined the effects of automated lines and AI.
Categories
- Size
- Small business
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Predictive analytics and MLRobotics and automation
- Adoption
- Government support program
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
ET News reported the SME ministry's plan to expand its autonomous factory programme, with Hallacast as the lead example. Hallacast makes moulds and lightweight parts for future vehicles. The ministry reported the defect rate falling from 10% to 6.5%, cycle time from 54 to 47 seconds, productivity up 15% and AI prediction accuracy around 90%. ET News also cited a survey finding that only 1.7% of small manufacturers had adopted or planned AI.
Money Today reported the ministry's AI-based smart manufacturing strategy, which aims to raise AI adoption among small manufacturers from about 1% to 10%. A survey found that 44.2% of small manufacturers saw upfront cost as the main barrier.
Full details are in the original sources.