Daegu Special Metal Clinches Production Reform Award
- Company stuck to reform programs to win the coveted honor

Daegu Special Metal Co. single-mindedly has been pursuing a number of its reform programs including technology development, raising quality, cost reduction, all geared toward producing products that can move its customers under President Lee Sang-tae.
The company has been after these programs since 2000 and this year, it finally paid off in the form of the Production Reform Award in the National Quality Management Convention.
It was the first time that such small company with only some 70 employees captured the national award, showing to the world that it is not always big firms that win the national awards but a small company can do it too if it tries hard enough.
Daegu Special Metal will try harder to contribute to the national and social development on the occasion of winning the award with the reform campaign, "Global Star 2005" as a base to grow to become a top professional parts maker in the world. The company hopes that the campaign would get all employees and officers under one flag to develop new technologies, achieve customer satisfaction and maximize managerial results.
Every employee of the company has been working to improve the quality of its products, including consumers' sensual needs, not limited to quality seen from outside, in the dimension of total quality inclusive of customer service. Office work also has been included as a key factor in the campaign to see that every one will do his best, leading to not only for the company to turn out best quality products but also develop the company and individual employee to the fullest of their potential.
The company felt that it would need a strong production system that can meet any kinds of conditions in terms of high quality, cost and delivery date due to its physical ability to weather any kinds of adversities including rapid changes in market conditions both at home and abroad and economic uncertainties.
"An enterprise not moving will topple over," "Reform is the only way to survival," have been the managerial ideals stressed by the company's top manager and the entire company has been exerting their efforts under the management which wants to set up a production system, changing from men centered one.
The company has been after the reform activity with a 30 years of its experience of having managerial infrastructure in the background. It launched "Think Ace 21" in 2000, "Blade Project" in 2002 and "Global Star 2005" in 2004. Until 2003, the company spent time setting up a managerial reform program with mottos of management reform, production reform, and quality reform. The company started daily accounting system to know where it stands in terms of receiving orders, production and delivery on a daily basis. In the production reform sector, the company promoted a number of reform programs to make it strong in various areas such as lay-out, lead time and a shadow program designed to train employees in the printing process, critical in the production procedure. Manpower training has been undertaken in other plant procedures, also, to make employees multifunctional and can come to grips with any kind of emergency situations as they develop. In order to strengthen technology development, the company set up a R&D center in downtown Daegu designed to develop its own technologies so that it would be able to produce the products that its customers want with diversified designs.
Since the launching of reform programs, the company has been growing 25 percent a year since 2000. Its projected sales revenue is projected to reach 7.1 billion won this year from 3.95 billion won in 2001, expanding more than 80 percent. In 2003, the company set up DSPS system to be able to meet its delivery dates.
Daegu Special Metal hopes to secure upgraded production and technology cost competitiveness through the reform of minds and systems based on reform programs that the company undertook until now.
The company's plant is located in Dalsung Ward in Daegu, capitalized at 75 million won. Its sales are projected to amount to 7.1 billion won this year with the number of employees totaling 75. Its main product lines include automotive measurement equipment, emblems, and warning signs, among others. In the home appliance sector, they include insert control panels and emblems. In the communications sector, LCD window for mobile phones. nw