Masterpiece mean special product such as masterwork, magnum opus, and fine piece, and mean expensive products from Luxury brand in the fashion industry. A masterpiece factory is defined as an ultra-excellent factory which capable of producing high-quality products and equipped with high-speed, automated facility that is highly productive.

48 years as a CEO of small and medium-sized company and as a worker, I think the word I listened to the most and put into practice was 'change and innovation'. I continued the factory innovation activities with the determination that 'if we don't change, we'll die', and among them, process innovation was recognized as an absolutely crucial task for an engineer.

After graduating from university, I joined the company at the Seoeup factory in Busan, and it was a 23,140m2 scale factory where LG produces toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, and Glycerine.

My first team was producing soap (makeup and laundry), and 300 female employees were manually packing soap, and soap production was limited to 10 tons of Neat Soap after pouring cow fat and palm oil into a 50-ton iron-pot and simmering it for 4-5 days.

It was a very poor working environment where oil and various ingredients were mixed to the point where one had to wear boots, and the production and packaging of Soap Bar was done by hand, so I doubted if this was the best chemical factory in Korea at that time.

A few years later, the relocation of the metropolitan factory started, the toothpaste and toothbrush factory were moved to the Cheongju factory, and the soap factory moved to Ulsan factory. I was in charge of big project that has to construct Ulsan Factory.

In order to determine the new process and introduce new facilities, I went on a long business trip to Italy and Germany to purchase and install continuous and automatic machines.

Through the pre-processing and distillation of fatty acid, soap was manufactured in seconds not 4 to 5 days, and flavoring and additives were mixed continuously not Batch type. The packaging process was 2-3 times faster so that manpower was not required. For example, installation and operation of a soap packaging machine worth $150,000 saved hundreds of manpower cost, resulting in a surprising result of process innovation.

I was surprised and admiration when I visited the BDF factory in Germany about 10 years ago. The manufacturing process of Nivea Cream was the continuous production of high-viscosity cream-type cosmetics with Load Cell, Metering Pump, and Line Mixer. As before, it was an unmanned factory with no need for Pre-mixer, Beco Mixer, or storage tanks.

Also, I was able to see the site of the process innovation at the Unilever shampoo factory in Japan. It was manufactured in large quantities with Metering pump and Line Mixer. Many compound mixers and semi-finished storage tanks could not be found, and it was a simple factory where a variety product exchange occurred if the supply tank was changed and the pump stroke was adjusted.

The fifth factory, which was constructed in January of this year, is a multi-function factory consisting of Mouthwash production site on the 1st and 2nd floors, and Lip Care packaging site on the 3rd floor.

With a total floor area is about 5289m2, and it is a factory with excellent insulation which consist of 600mm H Beam and 150-200mm Grass Wool wall materials, and a pair of glass windows. It is designed to facilitate the flow of logistics by installing two large cargo elevators, one for the second floor subsidiary materials and the other for the third floor Lip care. Also, it installed a large elevator for worker to enter the site.

In order to prevent the product contamination and maintain clean work environment, three large air conditioners are installed and operated in the 1st floor mouthwash manufacturing site, 3rd floor packing site.

There are four 10 ton Mixers installed in the mouthwash manufacturing room. The Mixer's scale is 2.5 times bigger than the existing fourth factory, and the transfer to the storage tank and supply lines to the charger are designed for Total Discharge type, which fundamentally prevents contamination of other products and microorganisms.

The newest type of R-O refining equipment achieves perfect purity, improves semi-finished product quality. The liquid material such as Alcohol and Glycerine is put into Mixer through automatically measures by flowmeter so that the productivity ability is excellent. Measurements of various raw materials are posted through Monitor, input and manufacturing processes can be checked through Monitor. Overall quality control is perfectly operated by MES-POP's computer system. So 5th Factory could be so called SMART FACTORY.

The 3 high-speed lines were installed in the Mouthwash Manufacturing site for Mouthwash Product named TheraBreath Oral Rinse and Propolinse Mouthwash. So it can be produced continuously without spec replacement. So the productivity is 2-3 times more than conventional factory.

The bottle and cap are supplied from the subsidiary room on the second floor and in place through their respective unscrambler. The bottles that come down according to the conveyor belt is charging by rotary type bottle washer, charger, and capping. And then labeling from high-speed automatic labeling machine and turn into Finished goods. The box is automatically assembled from the second floor, descending to the first floor. The Packing robot put the finished goods into box and taped automatically through taping machine.

Cap assembling on the bottle was handwork at the conventional factory but for now it isn't. Bottle has also been filled with 100-150 units per minute, making it a masterpiece factory with superior productivity compared to conventional factory. Propolinse mouthwash's POP is also automatically attached to the front and rear surfaces along with labeling, greatly reducing the manpower.

Regarding the Lipcare, it has the capability to product 70 million units per year. (based on 8hours/day). We have 6 compound Mixers, 14 Portable Tanks. It enables to increase the productivity and to produce multi-kind product with automatically produces, stores, and inputs the semi-finished products from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor.

Fast-charged goods-in-process supplied by pallet from the adjacent Cap Mechanic warehouse are moved to the 3rd floor of the 5th factory by pallet. 8 Blister Card packaging machines, labeling and semi-automatic packaging machines are enable to pack various type. Lipcare Cards and Boxes are supplied by pallet so that the logistics flow is excellent because of high productivity and possible of first-in, first-out.

The Lip Care factory and the entrance to the site where employees enter is divided, and the entrance to the site where they change into indoor shoes has been beautifully renovated with carpet tiles. The restroom used by female employees is comfortable and clean. The office is equipped with transparent glass for easy field observation. The 'Electronic Production Status' now allows employee to check production volume in real time in the office and respond quickly to emergency.

While preparing for the construction of the fifth factory, a new idea emerged that paintings of famous artists should be placed unlike those of previous factories. At the same time, there was an exhibition by artist 'Lee Jeong-geun', famous as a 'wave' artist, which cost ten thousand dollars to acquire and display several paintings, creating an atmosphere suitable for a 'masterpiece factory'.

I believe that the pictures of 'Oryukdo island', 'voyage', and 'wisteria', which symbolize the export company will soothe the hearts of our employees. I hope that the Lip Care and Mouthwash factory of the third and fifth factories will be reborn as world-class factories, and that they will overcome the export records of $20, $30, and $50 million.

If conventional factories benchmark the masterpiece factory(5th factory) in the same way and gaining global competitiveness through quality and productivity innovation, It is possible to realize our vision that LCC becoming a 'one-hundred year company through export'.

CEO BAIK, SUNGCHUN