Invest KOREA

Edwards Korea Produces
Vacuum Pumps for the World

The vacuum technology maker welcomed a new global production base in May and now supplies the world

Edwards, the world’s leading global supplier of vacuum and abatement equipment and services, moved its global production base from the United Kingdom to Korea in May. And if you think about it, this makes perfect sense.

Korea is a high-tech country, and most high technologies need to be manufactured in a vacuum environment, below atmospheric pressure. Edwards Korea Limited makes the dry vacuum pumps that create this vacuum environment. Fifty thousand of their pumps are in use nationwide, according to the company’s president, Lee Sung-min.

Of course, 50,000 pumps means a whole lot of maintenance. Edwards Korea’s field service technicians visit customer sites daily to check on the status of the pumps and to repair or swap out those that have problems. Pumps like these are essential to keeping a company’s production schedule on course.

“Whenever they call us, even when it is like 1 a.m., we always show up and support them,” Lee said of his customers.

This focus on support and people is one of the main reasons behind Edwards Korea’s success. Lee said UK colleagues have told him Koreans work too hard compared to UK employees.

“Our customers can utilize our people as their employees,” he said.

Edwards Korea has about 680 staffers. Almost all of them are Korean and about half of them were hired for the new production base, located in Cheonan and the company’s third domestic plant. Headquarters is located in Bundang, and seven site offices throughout the peninsula support the biggest of the company’s 700 customers ? namely, Samsung, LG Display and Hynix.

Edwards, a UK company started in 1919 and part of the BOC Group, is number one in the industry for revenue and market share. Its history with Korea, one of many owner and name changes, began in 1984, when Songwon Trading Co. Ltd. was the exclusive Korea agent for Edwards High Vacuum UK. In 1990, Songwon International entered into a joint venture with Edwards. Edwards Korea Limited was established in 2007, and private equity investment firm CCMP Capital acquired it the same year.

Edwards Korea manufactures and supplies vacuum and abatement equipment designed to provide clean conditions for producing semiconductors, LCDs, solar, analytical instruments, emerging technologies including flat panel screens and LED lighting and products for the chemical, pharmaceutical and biofuel industries.

The plant opening in May meant a move of all production facilities in the UK to Korea. Edwards Korea now provides dry vacuum pumps for customers worldwide. Executives in the UK initially considered moving the production base to China, to reduce costs, but decided their products needed to be high-tech and high quality, said Lee. They selected Korea.

“And geographically, Korea is the center of Asia,” Lee said. “About 60 percent of our total revenue is generated in Asia, so Korea’s location is at the very center, between Japan, China, Taiwan.”

The new plant is expected to significantly boost the company’s exports, from 140 billion won ($122.8 million) last year to 240 billion won this year. Products are exported mostly to the United States, China, Taiwan, Europe and Japan. Growth in domestic sales is expected to be minimal, from 240 billion won to 250 billion won.

Edwards Korea’s competitors include Japanese companies as well as local suppliers. But Lee says the greatest challenge comes from internally, to keep improving in product quality and to grow.

It’s been less than a year since the opening of the new production base, but Lee wants more ? the move of a turbo pump production facility from the UK to Korea and, in the long-term, a scrubber system manufacturing facility.

Having worked for Samsung Semicon ductor in the U.S. and other semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley, Lee also wants his staff to become more global. When he joined Edwards Korea two and a half years ago, his employees didn’t have many reasons or opportunities to deal with international colleagues or customers. Now, though, with the new global production base and the need to communicate frequently with UK counterparts, the president encourages his staff to improve their language and communication skills and develop a global mentality.

“Manpower is my first priority,” he said.

Walk into his office and a wall slogan reading “Good People Make a Good Company” will show you he means it.

“‘Good people’ means many things ? good characteristics, capability, some knowledge,” Lee said. “So if we have that kind of people, it promises the company will be a strong company.”