In this spirit, The Steel Wire highlights the innovative use of metals in household appliances and electronic devices from air conditioners and cameras to laptops. Read on to see how innovative applications of metals have the power to present a new, more efficient way to live.

Breeze-Free Air Conditioner with Metal Cooling Panel

There may have been those even in the heat this past summer who didn’t want to use air conditioners due to direct blasts of cold air. Here’s good news: Samsung’s “breeze-free” air conditioner, Q9500, maintains a stable room temperature without blasting a single column of strong and direct wind.

How can air conditioners be “breeze-free”?

The company used a metal cooling panel and a micro hall-based air current passage system that constantly changes the direction of the air. Cold air is sent through 135,000 tiny holes and the short airways can reduce energy use by 65 percent. Also, climate control settings can be adjusted directly via smartphones using IoT technology based on weather data.

Samsung’s breeze-free air conditioner, Q9500, comes with metal cooling panels and 135,000 micro holes which maintain a stable room temperature without blasting strong and direct cold air. (Source: Flickr)

The even distribution of cool air allows air conditioners to naturally blend in as part of any space or room it occupies and eliminates the discomfort of direct, cold air.

Lightweight & Durable Cameras with Magnesium Construction

Global camera brands have long been searching for ideal materials to meet consumers’ needs for lightweight, mobile and durable cameras. For this reason, one of the prestigious features of top-end cameras in the market today is magnesium construction. This is due to magnesium’s lightness, strength and ability to shield users from electromagnetic waves. Magnesium is, in fact, the lightest structurally-used metal in the world with a greater strength-to-weight ratio than that of aluminum. This allows magnesium electronics bodies to be thinner and lighter.

For instance, the exterior shell of the Nikon D3 is made of a magnesium alloy. The product’s magnesium-alloy camera frame effectively protects the camera from invasive dust, moisture and electromagnetic interference with a self-diagnostic shutter mechanism tested to exceed 300,000 cycles.

The Nikon D3s’ magnesium-alloy camera frame effectively protects the camera from invasive dust, moisture and electromagnetic interference.(Source: Flickr)

Ultra-light Laptop with Duralumin

Over the years, new technologies have pushed PC makers to build ever lighter and thinner laptops with premium materials. Samsung also started to pursue metals that are lightweight yet durable. In the past, the company used magnesium-lithium sheets from overseas suppliers in order to keep their laptops lightweight. The sheets had good machinability but low hardness, making them vulnerable to dents. In order to overcome this, the company turned to POSCO’s specially designed magnesium sheets, duralumin*, known for its high-strength and lightweight qualities. In 2016, POSCO began supplying its magnesium sheets for the Notebook 9 that is just 840g. In 2017, the Samsung Notebook 9’s weight was brought down even further to 799g.

These magnesium sheets, made with a rapid solidification process that is capable of precision control, are tempered several times and undergo special heat treatment until they reach a final thickness of 0.5mm. POSCO succeeded in increasing the surface hardness by more than 20 percent and the yield strength by more than 50 percent, compared to its competitors, while still maintaining a high level of machinability.

Such advancements in lightweight and high-strength materials have allowed people the flexibility, mobility and convenience to work on the go and reduce inefficiencies.  

*Duralumin is a high-strength aluminum alloy made by mixing copper, magnesium and other elements.

POSCO supplies magnesium sheets for Samsung Electronics’ 2017 model of Samsung Notebook 9 that touts ultra-light, high-strength metal materials. (Source: Samsung Newsroom)

In today’s world, it’s hard to imagine life without electronic appliances and devices that provide a better quality of life. In a way, the invention and evolution of such products have redefined the way people live, work and play. The application of innovative materials has sped up and continues to allow manufacturers to add value to their products.     

POSCO delivers its corporate vision and entity in a realistic form in print advertisement which has a rational characteristic with high information delivery functionality, while emotional images of win-win relationships and communication are the focus of TV advertisements.

With the main catch phrase of “POSCO is with anyone,” the POSCO ‘entity’ series advertisement promotes ‘POSCO’ as a company that provides basic products in our everyday lives through the steel, material, and energy businesses, with a layout arranging selections of moments when POSCO products and technology are used within various lifestyles of all generations to generate empathy.

Vice President Eun-yeon Hwang commented, “We tried to show that POSCO is in our everyday lives: in a TV made with POSCO’s steel technology, a wheelchair made of a light magnesium material, a magnesium fry pan which is light and harmless to the body, a flexible tablet PC made of grapheme, and LED lights in the study.  I hope that the advertisement which tells the success story of POSCO as a comprehensive material company can generate empathy from many people.”

Meanwhile, POSCO, which has been recognized as a reliable company serving a pivotal role in the nation’s economic development since establishment, started advertisement communication activities to generate an intimate corporate image starting in the year 2000.

 The ‘Without Steel’ campaign was the start of public advertisement communication themed with the usability of steel in everyday life, which was followed by continuous advertising campaigns focusing on win-win relationships and communication as main themes to heighten the images of corporate reliability and friendliness.

From August 12th to 16th, volunteers from Daewoo International, Vision Care and the employees working at Daewoo International’s trade office in Myanmar teamed up to visit the city of Yangon. During the CSR activity, the volunteers provided medical supports for about 400 cataract and strabismus patients. They also shared bottles of clean water and snacks to accommodate the patients.

Park Jeong-hwan, the vice president of Daewoo International, appreciated the efforts by Daewoo International employees and volunteers and said, “Myanmar holds a significant meaning to us because we succeeded in developing the gas field after 13 years of exertion.” “Also, Daewoo International is operating CSR activities by building hospitals and schools, as well as providing disaster rehabilitation. Giving medial supports for patients at Eye Camp is very worthwhile and happy engagement,” he added.

Daewoo International is also planning to hold another Eye Camp in Indonesia in November to show compassion for the people in needs with free eye operations and treatments.

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Participating in Eye Camp – Worth More Than Anything

Written by Lee Jeong-seok (Thick Plate – Team 1)

Being away from my everyday routine at the office was a new experience. When I started volunteering for Eye Camp, I worked in a sterilizing room next to an operating room, not in front of my PC and monitor. I was very confused in the beginning about my tasks but everything came in order as time went by.

The cataract operations our medical team provided on the site were operated through removing blurred crystalline lenses and replacing them with new ones. It is an outdated method but also, it was the best commitment we could do under the local circumstance.

By looking at the medical teams who were sincerely doing their jobs for the patients in desperation, my heart was overwhelmed with warmth and my sincerity for volunteering at this program grew even bigger.

Volunteering is generally considered an altruistic activity and is intended to promote good or improve human quality of life. As I participated in Eye camp, I learned that when you hope to do voluntary work for other people, you don’t need to be better than someone else. All you need is just a strong enough will for helping others.

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In light of such trends, we would like to introduce one of POSCO’s innovative way of working, ‘Smart Workplace’.

Innovative Working Experience with Cutting-Edge IT System

According to Gartner, a worldwide information technology research and advisory company, the importance of internal/external communication and cooperation is expected to reach up to 90 percent of the entire business operation by 2015. Also, corporates often face management issues involving several interactive factors. Therefore, the need for sharing and blending professional knowledge suggested from the inside of organization is increasingly desired. Moreover, there is a growing number of concerns over the balance between work and personal lives of employees.

Does it sound too good to be true? Well, for POSCO, this is something not for the future, but for the now.

POSCO’s Innovative ‘Smart Workplace’

POSCO aims to generate smart and creative business operations, hinged on sharing the knowledge of our expert employees without any unheard voices. This innovative platform is afoot to gather various experiences and ideas, freely submitted by POSCO’s employees with no limits of time and space.

POSCO Chairman Chung Joon-yang meets Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, in November, 2011

Since 2011, POSCO has strategically cooperated with Google and collected various ideas from POSCO’s own employees to materialize a unique way of working. It is labeled ‘Smart Workplace’, combined with social media, mobile devices, cloud computing and numerous state-of-the-art IT technologies. It has been in operation since December, 2012.

Cooperation and Communication Beyond Time and Space

The ‘Smart Workplace’ interconnects and analyzes POSCO employees’ personal profile (department, responsible task, past record), interests and expertise. With this function, the system allows appropriate project partner searching and coordinates effective cooperation. The information is also shared with other organizations for smooth communication and monitoring amid multiple work places. Also, every outcome of the cooperated operation is managed via the category of ‘Essential Achievement’ for the participating personnel and the supervisors, promoting the settlement of employee engagement and transparent evaluation.

Moreover, the participants are able to jointly create an online shared document through E-mail, Messenger, SNS and Video conference. The infrastructure provides an environment for interactive, real-time communication amongst the involved staff cooperating with each other. In doing so, POSCO’s employees, with the expert knowledge are capable of cooperating freely with one another. Their time is also managed more effectively as the system saves a great deal of time consumption, usually taken for meeting, travelling, instruction and briefing.

Online Cooperation utilized by PC video conference

The video conference via PC is noteworthy as there are more than 3,000 on-line meetings held every month. Such active usage of the online communication and cooperation has resulted in a 14 percent decrease in long-distance business trips and reduced about 30 percent of wasted costs for travelling.

The online scheduling is also being actively used. A productive environment has been settled where the supervisors and staff can easily communicate and focus on their tasks by exchanging directions and cooperate online. POSCO says the numbers of document prints are now cut down by 77 percent and the briefings involving printed documents have also been decreased from 71 percent to 20 percent.

The system’s automatic and real-time translator also contributes for sharing information in different languages amidst POSCO’s staff. Any contents in text-format can be translated with the translator’s ability of processing 66 languages. As you might have guessed by now, it also saves time as there’s no need to spend time and costs for translation.

From ‘Smart’ to ‘Speed’ Workplace!

The ‘Smart Workplace’ provides an environment for mobile work and telecommuting, enabling the staff to undertake giving directions, receiving reports and every other task which they are responsible for, from the outside the office.

Working in ‘Smart Office’

After the introduction of ‘Smart Office’, 90 percent of POSCO employees handed in positive reviews. They also stated that the ratio of cooperation enhanced by 81 percent. The time required for approval and authorization by the superior employee has also been reduced by 63 percent. The faster speed of job accomplishments was feasible as supervisors could get on with their assignments while also moving one place to another.

‘Knowledge Share’ is another major feature of ‘Smart Workplace’ we shouldn’t neglect. Every form of the data related to utilization and information sharing amongst employees is stored in the contents storage. The documents created by the Unified Contents Management System are numbered 11,400 daily on average. 85 percent of them are shared for cooperation purposes.

Furthermore, on the basis of ‘one blog by one person’ campaign, working, education and creative activities insights are accessible to all employees whom have registered. The active knowledge spillover and communication is also continued in the SNS environment.

POSCO is planning to extend its unique working style to the firm’s domestic and overseas affiliates and corporations. In terms of communication and cooperation, the participation from POSCO’s subsidiaries and partners will continuously be promoted. On the foundation of ‘Smart Workplace’, a platform for communication and cooperation, POSCO’s innovation for enhancing the ways of everyday work continues.