The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and Samsung Vietnam on Monday officially kicked off the smart factory development project. VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) and Samsung Vietnam on Monday officially kicked off the smart factory development project with an aim to support Vietnamese firms to participate in global supply chains.

Accordingly, in the first phase of the project, 12 businesses in Bắc Ninh, Hà Nội, Hà Nam, Hưng Yên and Vĩnh Phúc would participate in a three-week training course to gain theories about smart factories and nine-week practice. Samsung’s specialists and Vietnamese consultants would review the businesses and help them establish smart factories.

Specialists then would continue to support the firms in building operation and management systems as well as making improvements.

Speaking at the ceremony, Đỗ Thắng Hải, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, said: “In the context of a highly competitive market, with a self-screening and selection mechanism, Vietnamese manufacturing enterprises are facing many challenges, having to compete with large corporations not only in the international market but also in the domestic market. Therefore, developing smart factories is an inevitable trend for Vietnamese manufacturing enterprises.”

Hải said that to realise the goal of further promoting industrialisation and modernisation in Resolution No 29/NQ-TW, the ministry has actively implemented cooperation programmes with multinational and large FDI enterprises in Việt Nam to improve the quality of human resources and competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises in the field of manufacturing, processing and support industry.

He added that cooperation programmes with Samsung Việt Nam have brought positive signs to the country’s industrial sector in general and the support industry in particular, helping local firms join the global supply chain.

Choi Joo Ho, President of Samsung Vietnam Complex, said: “Based on the achievements in supporting the development of the support industry in the past seven years, Samsung Vietnam will continue to promote cooperation in the field of smart manufacturing for the development of the industry which creates high added value the Vietnamese Government is aiming for in the medium and long term.”

He said he hoped that through this project, Vietnamese enterprises would strengthen their competitiveness according to global standards across the entire process, such as development, production and sales. Further, there will be many excellent businesses expanding their opportunities to participate in the supply chain of Samsung and global enterprises.

"In particular, this project has the participation of experts from Samsung's parent company to support the construction of the smart factory. With the support, I hope that the capacity of businesses participating in the project will be improved to a new level," he added.

As one of 12 enterprises participating in this project, Nguyễn Đình Thản, Director of AMA Bắc Ninh Joint Stock Company, said: “In order to survive and develop, in addition to improving productivity and quality, standardising process, digitising production data at each stage, updating in real-time, making timely and correct decisions are vital requirements for businesses in general and AMA in particular.”

Implementing the Memorandum of Understanding on the cooperation project on smart factory development between the MoIT and Samsung Vietnam, the ministry in 2022 cooperated with Samsung Vietnam to train 51 smart factory consultants and support consulting and improvement for 26 enterprises applying smart factories in both the North and the South.

The programme has brought a lot of in-depth knowledge to help improve the expertise of the domestic consultants and support to improve the production operation capacity on the basis of businesses’ information technology. The response and active participation from the business community is the premise for the ministry to continue implementing the programme in 2023 and the following years.

Since 2008, after officially investing in Việt Nam, Samsung Vietnam has been making efforts to contribute to the development of Việt Nam's support industry through a variety of support activities. — VNS