KSOE head puts focus on R&D to fight competition
Kwon Oh-gap, chief executive of Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering,
said the company will hire more researchers to boost technology-driven
growth in an internal email sent to employees Tuesday.
It is the first email Kwon has sent to employees since Hyundai Heavy
Industries split into two entities - Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering,
an intermediate holding company, and Hyundai Heavy Industries,
an operating company - last month.
“Shipbuilding has been a labor-intensive industry, but our company will
transform the industry to be more dependent on new technologies,”
Kwon said in email. “With fast followers like Chinese competitors growing
based on cheap labor and more companies from resource-abundant
countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia preparing to start shipbuilding
businesses, we need innovation to continue leading the market.”
To bolster the company’s technology development, Kwon said he plans to
gradually hire more employees at a new R&D center to be built in Pangyo,
Gyeonggi, by 2021. He said the company will fully support an R&D team that
could number up to 5,000 employees.
The CEO, however, did not give a clear timeline on when hiring will take place.
Some of the new technologies Kwon said will be crucial for the local shipbuilding
industry to survive in the future include developing eco-friendly ships and smart ships.
Eco-friendly ships or technologies to make existing ships eco-friendlier are
in high demand as the International Maritime Organization is tightening
environmental guidelines. Ships have to use marine fuel with a sulfur
content of no more than 0.5 percent from January 2020, a huge cut from
the current limit of 3.5 percent.
Also as cars get smarter with autonomous driving technologies and wireless
internet connectivity, shipbuilders are trying to make their ships capable of
self-monitoring and finding sea routes on their own.
Kwon also shared his ambition to make all of Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore
Engineering’s subsidiaries prosper under its leadership.
Currently, the company stands as a holding unit for Hyundai Heavy Industries,
Hyundai Mipo Dockyard and Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries. Daewoo
Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering will officially become its new subsidiary
once regulators approve of the takeover.
“I will make sure each subsidiary has autonomy in management and
seek ways to grow together,” he said. “I have devoted more than half of
my life in the Korean shipbuilding industry and I believe my last mission is
to reinvigorate the industry.”
According to May data from global shipping and shipbuilding market tracker
Clarksons Research, Korean shipbuilders won 60 percent of the orders
made last month, while China took 26 percent.