At the 39th National Productivity Award presentation ceremony
Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), a leading aerospace technology company, was honored with a Presidential Citation at the 39th National Productivity Award presentation ceremony held on Sept. 9, 2015 at the COEX hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and organized by Korea Productivity Center.
The National Productivity Award is conferred on companies, organizations and individuals who made outstanding contribution to strengthening competitiveness and developing national economy through innovation. KAI received the Presidential Citation in recognition of its contribution to development of the aerospace industry of Korea by increasing export of Korea-developed aircrafts with conspicuous enhancement of competitiveness in the world market through continued innovations.
Since inauguration of President Ha Sung-yong in 2013, KAI has been pushing forward corporate-wide innovation activities to achieve aggressive mid- and long-term vision and management goal. KAI could successfully improve efficiency of the company as well as individual employees by spreading corporate culture that shares and empathizes the vision and goal of the company by the management and employees based on management philosophy and innovative ideas of President Ha Sung-yong. And it enhanced productivity by motivating employees by improving management systems to ensure clearer and transparent assessment of performance and compensation. A variety of innovation activities resulted in successful development of the light fighter ‘FA-50’ and multi-purpose helicopter ‘Surion’, driving the growth of Korea’s aerospace industry as well as KAI.
With rapid growth, KAI’s export revenue is expected to increase from 172.6 billion won (approx. US$145.6 million) in 2006 to 2 trillion won (approx. US$168.7 million) in this year, a rise of over 10 times. Sales revenue per employee at KAI is anticipated to grow from 260 million won (approx. US$219,400) to over 800 million won (approx. US$675,100) during the same period, an increase of more than 3 times, demonstrating highly successful enhancement of its productivity.
In early September, KAI started to jointly develop the first one of ‘next generation medium-sized satellites’ with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). By the end of 2019, the two organizations aim to develop the first medium-sized satellite for precise ground observation (with cameras of 0.5 meters in black-and-white resolution and 2.0 meters in color resolution), and KARI will transfer its experiences in developing satellite and technologies for developing systems, spacecraft and satellite payload to KAI in the course of this joint development project. After developing the first satellite, KAI will develop and launch a total of 12 medium-sized satellites by 2025 in three phases based on technologies transferred from the KARI. These next generation medium-sized satellites will consist of satellites for diverse purposes, including ground observation, surveillance, weather/environment and space science. Some of these satellites will be launched by Korea-developed launch vehicles. And these satellites will be used by a variety of government agencies, such as Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Ministry of Environment, Korea Meteorological Administration, Korea Forest Service, Statistics Korea, and Rural Development Administration.
Having amassed technologies in developing aircrafts and spacecrafts, KAI is confident that it will achieve fast growth based on technology prowess, project management capability and 1,400 developers and engineers. “We are formulating various strategies to open up the high entry barrier of the world aerospace market, such as export of aircrafts, launch vehicles and satellites in a package, through continued innovation,” said KAI’s President Ha Sung-yong.