SK Innovation’s Ulsan plant goes smarter with AI, robot dog, AR tech

ULSAN, South Gyeongsang Province – At a petrochemical plant run by SK Innovation Co., South Korea’s largest oil refiner, Spot, a robot dog, was on routine patrol around the factory to spot any potential gas leaks on Sunday.

The $131,600 Spot, made by US robotics startup Boston Dynamics, recently joined SK Innovation, the parent of SK Energy Co., as its robot employee to enhance safety in SK’s plant operations.

At another plant where a new building is under construction, SK Energy officials were checking a smart scaffolding system developed with augmented reality (AR) technology for efficient and safe construction.

“Many companies are rushing to adopt artificial intelligence and digital transformation technology to turn their factories into smart factories. But we have been doing it for years and we’re going smarter now,” said an SK Innovation official.

SMART PLANT AT ULSAN CLX SINCE 2016

SK Group has for years been striving to turn Ulsan, where SK’s largest refinery and chemical complex are located, into the country’s green energy hub and smart industrial city.

Ulsan is home to not just SK’s refinery and chemical complex but also the manufacturing base for other companies such as Hyundai Motor Co. and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Korea’s largest shipbuilder.

Last September, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said at an Ulsan forum that the conglomerate will spend 8 trillion won ($6 billion) to make the industrial city Korea’s AI-supported manufacturing base and an eco-friendly business hub.

SK Innovation has been operating a smart plant at its Ulsan Complex, or Ulsan CLX, since 2016.

The company, which also owns battery maker SK On Co., is advancing its process automation system to make its Ulsan CLX factory smarter.

Once fully implemented at its complex, SK Innovation plans to sell its “smart plant solutions” to other Korean and overseas companies.

In February, SK Energy teamed up with PTC Korea Co. to jointly enter the global smart plant construction business.

PTC, formerly Parametric Technology Corp., is a computer software and services company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

The company, a pioneer in computer-aided design (CAD) modeling software, sells software products and builds IoT and AR platforms across industries.

Under their partnership, SK plans to use PTC Korea's software technology in its next-generation facility management system OCEAN-H, or optimized & connected enterprise asset network hub.

OCEAN-H, a system that systematically accumulates data on energy and chemical industry facilities within factories, is used to improve efficiency and safety in plant operations.

The two companies have been collaborating since 2022 in the construction of smart plants, which SK Energy first introduced to the energy and chemicals industries in 2016.

As part of their cooperation, SK Energy has already applied PTC Korea’s AR system for its scaffolds and structures installed on construction sites for worker safety.

TO CUT COSTS, ENHANCE EMPLOYEE SAFETY

With its advancement of process automation and AI-based digital facility management, SK Innovation expects to cut costs by up to 10 billion won annually.

In the second half of this year, the company plans to utilize an “engineer technology chatbot” based on its large-scale language model (LLM) under development as part of its digital transformation strategy.

The chatbot will be used to teach new employees and junior workers the know-how of plant operations accumulated by experienced SK workers.

The company said new employees will also be required to register with its IT training course called CDS or citizen data science.

In Japan, accidents at oil refining and petrochemical plants have doubled with the retirement of the Tankai generation or baby boomers born after World War II – the main workforce for decades.

SK Innovation said it wants to avoid the repeat of such accidents by making its Ulsan CLX a smarter plant.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com

In-Soo Nam edited this article.