[Interview] “I followed my father around electrical construction sites” ... Innovating manufacturing with AI

[Financial News] “I didn’t have some grand goal of going into the automation business from the outset. As I learned technical skills and gained experience on site, I found that electricity was the field I was best at, and turning that experience into a business led to what is now Dahan FA.”
Kim Seung-woo, CEO of Dahan FA, said on the 21st, “My first experience on a job site was when I was in high school and followed my father, who ran an interior and building electrical construction business, to learn the work.”
Dahan FA is a company that handles electrical and instrumentation work at manufacturing sites, control panel design and production, development of programmable logic controller (PLC) and human-machine interface (HMI) programs, and commissioning. Rather than simply installing individual pieces of equipment, it builds automation systems from design through to actual operation.
Kim, who was born in 1991, naturally became familiar with electrical construction sites by accompanying his father, who ran an interior and building electrical construction business. The electrical construction work he initially took on as a part-time job later became the foundation for starting his own business. After majoring in space science at university and venturing into the clothing business, he experienced failure and returned to electrical job sites. Feeling that electrical construction alone had limits as a competitive business, Kim gradually learned automation control, PLC programming, and control panel design and production. The result was Dahan FA.
Kim explained, “At first, I thought a technician’s role was to carry out work precisely according to the drawings provided and make sure the equipment operated properly. But after working at various manufacturing sites, I came to see automation as a comprehensive technology that requires us to consider productivity, quality, safety, maintenance and the use of data together.”
The competitive edge Dahan FA touts also comes from this kind of on-site experience. At manufacturing sites, PLC programs, HMIs, control panels, electrical design and electrical construction are interconnected, so a problem in even one area can affect the operation of the entire facility. When different companies handle different tasks, it can become complicated to identify the cause of a problem and respond when equipment is modified or breaks down.
By contrast, when one company handles the entire process—from design and control panel production to program development, electrical and instrumentation work, and commissioning—it can reduce the customer’s management burden and respond quickly to problems.
Kim stressed, “An automation company’s competitive edge isn’t just about writing good PLC programs or making good control panels. What matters is the ability to understand a customer’s processes and take responsibility from design through to actual operation.”
He also sees the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technology, a major topic in the manufacturing industry lately, as a new growth opportunity. In particular, the company is preparing to integrate AI with the PLC, HMI and automatic control technologies in which it already has strengths.
Kim stressed, “AI technology itself is important, but the key is what data to collect on site and how to connect it to the actual control of equipment. I want to build on our strength of understanding real manufacturing sites and grow into a company that bridges AI and automatic control technology.”
The goal is to grow into an integrated industrial automation company that also combines robotics, data, AI and energy management technology. The company plans to standardize the engineering experience it has gained by building customized systems for each site, develop that expertise into its own solutions and products, and expand into software and services.
Kim said, “Ten years from now, I hope we’ll be the company people think of when considering factory automation or smart factories—a company they can entrust with everything from design and actual operation to data utilization. I want to grow Dahan FA into an automation specialist that can compete at manufacturing sites overseas, drawing on the technology and on-site experience we have built up in Korea.”
[email protected] Lee Ju-mi Reporter