Abstract

The 4th industrial revolution and the manufacturing revitalization policies of advanced economies and global cities have threatened the competitiveness and survival of Seoul manufacturing firms. Seoul Metropolitan Government has announced the ‘Manufacture Seoul’ plan for its manufacturing industry. However, the plan does not fully embrace changes in the megatrend such as the 4th industrial revolution.

This study explores the characteristics and the current innovation systems of Seoul manufacturing and suggests a big transformation in Seoul manufacturing to compete with other global cities such as New York and Tokyo. Based on the questionnaire survey of companies and experts and an in-depth interview with them, we found that Seoul firms have a tendency to pursue a catching-up strategy. Only 14.3 percent of the firms adopted radical innovation linkage with R&D institutes and other firms while performing a new product development project. In addition, almost 98 percent of the firms did not cooperate with other firms in advertisement, market research, and sales, and co-purchasing. Only 11.5 percent of the firms performed a co-R&D project with other firms.

This study proposes ‘New Manufacture Seoul to Create Value and Innovation’ for policy vision. It recommends four strategies that are summarized as follows: innovation strategy such as the development and diffusion of Seoul-specific smart technology innovation; creative class development strategy for a researcher, engineer, and workers in smart technology; social manufacturing strategy that enables interconnections among consumer, product developers, designers, engineers, and other service providers both online and offline; and global growth strategy for small- and medium-sized firms to pioneer global markets.

 

Contents

01 Introduction

1_Background and Purpose of the Study

2_Main Contents and Research Methods

 

02 Contexts of Manufacturing Revitalization Policy

1_Traditional Roles of Manufacturing Industry

2_The 4th Industrial Revolution and Manufacturing Industry

3_Korean Government’s Policy with respect to the 4th Industrial Revolution

 

03 Policies of Advanced Economies

1_Central Government’s Policy

2_Global Cities’ Policy

 

04 Overview of Seoul Manufacturing Industry

1_Industrial Structure of Seoul Manufacturing Industry

2_Industrial Distribution of Seoul Manufacturing Industry

 

05 Characteristics of Seoul Manufacturing Industry

1_Research Design

2_Competitiveness and Future Directions

3_Policy Preferences

4_Innovation and Cooperation

5_Recognition of and Demand for Smart Manufacturing Technology

6_Location Decisions

7_Human Resource Developments

 

06 Policy Recommendations

1_The Present and Future of Seoul Manufacturing Industry

2_Policy Concept: New Manufacture Seoul to Create Value and Innovation

3_Innovation Strategy: Smart Technology R&D Development and Diffusion

4_Innovation Strategy: Infusion of Smart Technology Into SMEs

5_Innovation Strategy: Enhancing Product Development Capacity

6_Creative Class: Convergence and Fusion R&D Human Development

7_Creative Class: Customized Training for Smart Technology People

8_Creative Class: Social Housing

9_Social Manufacturing System: Online Cooperation Platform

10_Social Manufacturing System: O2O(offline to online) Platform

11_Social Manufacturing System: Innovation Infusion into the Cooperatives

12_Global Growth: Global Mobile Platform

13_Global Growth: Industrial Expos in the Emerging and Converging Field, Commercialization of Cluster Space

 

References

Appendix