In the context of a highly-competitive market with a self-screening and selection mechanism, developing smart plants has become an inexorable trend for Vietnamese manufacturing businesses, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade (MoIT) Do Thang Hai noted at the kick-off ceremony for a smart factories development cooperation project for the northern region in 2023, co-organized by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Samsung Vietnam in Hanoi on July 3.

The project aims to improve the professional capacity of the domestic consulting team and strengthen the production capacity on businesses’ IT platforms. Under an agreement between MoIT and Samsung Vietnam, signed in February 2022, within two years the program will support 50 Vietnamese enterprises in developing smart plants and provide training to 100 Vietnamese experts in the field of smart factory consulting.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Choi Joo Ho, General Director of Samsung Vietnam, said that via this project, Vietnamese businesses will enhance their competitiveness according to global standards throughout the entire process, from development to production and sales. Furthermore, outstanding businesses will have the chance to participate in the global supply chains of Samsung and other global conglomerates. “I hope that this smart factory development project will become a driving force to contribute to Vietnam’s Industry 4.0 innovation efforts,” he said.

MoIT and Samsung have cooperated since 2015 to implement an improvement consultation program to help 379 Vietnamese businesses enhance their competitive capacity. Between 2018 and 2021, their efforts helped train 406 support industry experts in the country.

In addition, considering the importance of mold manufacturing in industrial production, MoIT and Samsung continued to implement a training project for 200 mold technicians during the 2020-2023 period. Via these programs and activities, the number of Vietnamese Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers in Samsung’s global supply chain has increased ten-fold, from 25 in 2014 to 257 as of the end of 2022.

By the end of 2022, Samsung, in cooperation with the MoIT, had supported the training of 51 experts in the field of smart factories and provided consultation on smart factory development to 26 businesses around the country. Following the assistance, Vietnamese businesses were equipped with knowledge and methods to effectively implement digital transformation projects towards smart factory development, and saw their competitiveness improve to be ready to integrate into global supply chains.