Hyundai Livart, a total interior company of Hyundai Department Store Group, said its smart work center was selected as an official site for the "2026 World Wood Science and Technology Conference" organized by the National Institute of Forest Science under the Korea Forest Service.
The World Wood Science and Technology Conference, which marks its 69th anniversary this year, is an international academic conference held annually by the Society of Wood Science and Technology (SWST) and will be held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul until the 12th. It is the first time for Korea to be held since the establishment of the society in 1958. The theme of this year's competition is Wood Science and Materials for a Sustainable Future.
The society has thousands of wood experts from around the world, including researchers from accredited institutions such as the U.S. Forest Service and the American broad-leaved timber association, timber-related professors from major universities around the world such as Seoul National University and the University of Turin in Italy, and executives from global companies such as West Frazier, a famous U.S. timber company. Major executives of the society and about 30 timber scholars from each country will visit the Hyundai Livart Smart Work Center in person on the 12th.
An official from Hyundai Livart said, "It was in line with the theme of this year's competition that we have made efforts to build a sustainable production system, such as cutting-edge furniture manufacturing capabilities to reduce waste wood rates and solar energy," adding, "This means that our efforts to build a sustainable furniture production system have been recognized as global best practices by world-leading experts."
The smart work center, which began operation in 2022, is a state-of-the-art complex manufacturing and logistics facility with a total size of 85,950㎡ (about 26,000 pyeong), which is the size of 12 soccer fields. There are 17,000㎡ smart factory on the third floor and large distribution center on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th floors, respectively.
Smart Factory is operated as a 'Smart Production System (MES)' that automates the entire process of furniture manufacturing. When furniture design information is input, 3D drawings and estimated material consumption are calculated in real time, and six production lines and 400 process-specific facilities are set at once accordingly. Through this, all processes, from the transfer of wood to cutting, drilling, assembly, and packaging of finished products, are carried out without human hands. The transportation of materials is also handled by seven unmanned vehicles.
In particular, Hyundai Livart lowered the waste wood rate by about 10% through the Cutlight program, which calculates the size and shape of wood fragments of items to be produced in smart production systems and cuts them by reducing the scraps as much as possible. A Hyundai Livart official said, "Cutlight is a similar principle to cutting out the necessary shapes on a large piece of paper," adding, "The rate of use of wood that has gone through the process of applying cutlight is more than 90%, which is 5-10%p higher than that of wood that has gone through the general process without a cutlight program."
Hyundai Livart is also speeding up the expansion of sustainable production infrastructure in smart work centers. About 3,200 solar panels will be built on the roof of the center, which is about 16,528 square meters (about 5,000 pyeong), and material transport vehicles are sequentially converted to electric vehicles. It is also considering how to recycle resources by recovering waste vinyl and recycling it into pallets for product storage in the future. An official from Hyundai Livart said, "We will continue to develop cutting-edge technologies and apply them to furniture manufacturing in the future."
