[Executive Corner] Innovation Partner for Future Mobility
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By News Reporter
LG remains steadfast in its commitment to actively nurture ideas with the potential to fuel the company’s future growth. By fostering a corporate culture that not only encourages challenges but also embraces failures as stepping stones to success, LG aims to embody the principles that have been at the heart of CEO William Cho’s leadership philosophy since his tenure began. CEO Cho consistently champions the ‘Brave Optimist’ mindset, inspiring everyone to boldly undertake challenges and relentlessly innovate, anchored in the belief that the customer is always the key to unlocking solutions.
A prime embodiment of this ethos is ‘STUDIO341,’ an initiative launched by LG last year. This program is designed to identify and cultivate in-house ventures that encapsulate the spirit of challenge and innovation, a mindset that has been instrumental in propelling LG from its humble beginnings as Goldstar in 1958 to its current status as a global leader in home appliances. The ‘341’ in ‘STUDIO341’ serves as a poignant reminder for LG’s ‘Brave Optimists’ to stay true to the company’s roots, symbolizing the original street address of Goldstar in Busan, Korea’s second-largest city.
The initiative welcomed anyone with a creative idea that can solve a problem worth solving and provide a new experience to customers. The response was impressive, with over 100 internal submissions received.
In the previous year, LG shortlisted the top thirteen ideas – one more than the originally intended twelve – which were further narrowed down to six during an internal IR event. This process involved evaluating the ideas based on their potential to provide unique customer experiences. The selection criteria encompassed business value, feasibility, potential impact and team capabilities.
The chosen teams were relocated to an external office to be able to fully immerse themselves in developing their in-house venture ideas. By March 2024, the top six teams had the opportunity to present their business proposals at the ‘STUDIO341 Demo Day’ in Seoul, in front of LG executives and potential investors.
After thorough deliberation, the top five teams selected for spinoff were unveiled: ‘MASKIT,’ a mobile ticketing and admission service for performing arts that removes the necessity for queuing; ‘FreshGo,’ an original cold chain transportation solution that leverages individual refrigeration technology; ‘Cucumber,’ a platform focused on local food pickup services; ‘Found Objet,’ a digital transaction platform for recycled plastic materials; and ‘X-UP,’ a solution for diagnosing and maintaining golf courses using robots and heat mapping technology.
Meanwhile, LG partnered with Bluepoint, a partnership-driven Korean startup accelerator, to leverage their ability to objectively assess the teams’ capabilities and provide more effective support. This approach has helped streamline the whole process to a year, with six months for selection and six months for development. During the process, each team will receive a joint investment from LG and Bluepoint up to a maximum of KRW 400 million.
In parallel, LG is intensifying its collaboration with global startups, as exemplified by its partnership with Amwell, a U.S. telemedicine company, to provide remote medical treatment solutions across North America. The company also aims to evaluate the viability of services in prevention, diagnosis, post-management and recovery, among others.
LG NOVA, LG’s North America Center for Innovation, launched its “Mission For the Future” by presenting the Eureka Park showcase at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. It also leveraged its influence to introduce startups operating in the digital healthcare field, such as XR Health, Mindset Medical and C.Light Technologies.
Stay tuned to
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By News Reporter
From the best restaurants to the most expansive and complex warehouses, service and industrial robots are reshaping countless industries through impactful and groundbreaking advancements that bring the autonomous future a step closer. Enhanced efficiency, productivity and cost savings are just a few advantages of service and industrial robots.
In line with this, LG recently
link hidden, please login to view as it doubles down on its commitment to advancing the capabilities of its service robotics, one of the company’s most promising business areas.
After a number of years innovating the robotics space, the lineup has evolved into ‘your best partner’ with a wide range of solutions that include LG CLOi ServeBot, LG CLOi GuideBot and LG CLOi CarryBot, powered by AI technology.
’s independent suspension is implemented to all six wheels to ensure stable maneuverability across uneven floors. This enables the CLOi ServeBot to securely transport beverages and meals, including soups and noodles, even when travelling over surfaces with a slope of up to 5 millimeters (0.2 inches). And fully equipped with a LiDAR sensor and 3D camera, this technology lets the CLOi ServeBot navigate obstacles smoothly, ensuring that none of its valuable “cargo” is upset.
Offering next-level convenience to restaurant owners, LG CLOi ServeBot runs for 11 hours on a full charge and can be charged both automatically and manually. The latest model offers even more services, which means it can now carry out its serving duties and assist business owners with various tasks.
With its expanded tray size, the latest LG CLOi ServeBot now holds up to 40 kilograms, enabling it to transport all the dishes needed for western cuisine, which typically uses heavy tableware, or Korean cuisine, which comprises several side dishes. Extremely adaptable, the advanced robot’s trays can be completely removed or height adjusted to match different environments or applications. It even knows when the customer has picked up their plate so it can head straight back to the kitchen. On the other hand, if the tray is left full of tableware, then it automatically returns to its designated area.
LG CLOi ServeBot also provides entertainment including a CMS (Content Management System) that lets users upload content via their mobile device. Through its 10-inch display, customers waiting to be seated are shown the menu and entertaining videos to be pass the time. Additionally, android apps can be installed according to preference.
Going beyond its service robots, LG is proactively responding to the increasing need for robots in industrial settings with robotic innovations that boost productivity and quality in the manufacturing process. The company provides a variety of solutions that can be used to automate the warehouse.
LG unveiled its latest industrial robots at MODEX 2024, the largest supply chain logistics trade show in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. This included the new LG CLOi CarryBot family of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR), which are specially designed to navigate complex floor plans and deliver payloads in customizable configurations.
LG showcased two versions of LG CLOi CarryBot: a featuring two shelves which is ideal for smaller packages and navigating tight spaces, and a capable of carrying heavy loads on its back. This practical machine can quickly transport goods in large logistics sites at speeds of up to 1.2 meters per second, while providing stable driving by applying ‘Fast-X,’ LG’s autonomous driving technology optimized for logistics environments, including average driving and curve speed as well as acceleration and deceleration control.
In fact, the company has innovated a number of solutions to enhance factory efficiency. ‘Mobile Manipulator’ an autonomous driving-based vertical articulated robot that mimics human arm movements. Unlike conventional robots that usually carry out the same task repeatedly, Mobile Manipulators move around production lines and carry out various tasks such as transportation, product assembly and inspection. Another solution is LG’s low-floor AMRs, industrial logistics robots that can carry 500 kilograms from A to B with very little assistance, which not only makes production efficient but safe too.
To learn how LG is continuing to drive the commercialization of robotics in the real world while expanding its B2B businesses, stay tuned to .
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By News Reporter
For consumers, it’s the ‘experience’ that counts.
link hidden, please login to view, 73 percent of all customers place experience near the top of their checklist when making purchasing decisions, following only price and product quality in order of importance. LG, a company that strives to ensure that ‘Life’s Good’ for all, has prioritized the art of providing F.U.N. – first, unique and new – core values for customers.
To successfully deliver the types of experiences that customers desire, LG first had to make sure that all parts of the organization were aligned and properly equipped for the task at hand. In 2024, new CX performance management system is applied to the entire executive organization structure – not just Korean executives at the company’s headquarters but global executives and employees in charge of sales, manufacturing and management – with a view to adding CX to other crucial measurements of overall business performance, such as sales and operating profit.
The data from the CX indicator is analyzed to assess the various teams involved and to instill a ‘customer-first’ mindset throughout the entire company. The definition of ‘customer’ in this equation is not limited to end-users, but includes business partners and relevant internal departments as well.
The company made meaningful changes by promoting various customer value innovation activities. However, it was identified that a process was needed to properly evaluate business performance as well as reward the achievement of increased levels of customer satisfaction.
Accordingly, starting from this year, all LG Electronics executives will be evaluated based on the level of customer satisfaction within the organizations under their purview, and also on whether or not they have achieved their allotted tasks. Customer satisfaction is graded based on LG’s in-house-developed measurement tool, which quantifies the satisfaction level of LG customers during each stage of the customer experience journey.
Now, each organization is charged with the mission of determining how it will go about innovating target customers’ experiences. In this way, each unit or team can give in-depth consideration to the important question of “What constitutes a differentiated experience from the customers’ perspective?” and then gauge whether or not a specific CX innovation can be realized.
For teams that don’t work directly with customers, CX tasks can include identifying the relevant customer groups, such as internal departments or suppliers, for a certain aspect or piece of organizational work, and generating appropriate and actionable innovation activities to drive meaningful results. LG strongly believes that customer value innovation is not just the domain of ‘management’ or select customer-facing teams. Rather, it takes a whole company working together to consistently create it, with each person adopting a ‘customer-first’ mindset and seeking to view all pertinent matters from the customer’s perspective.
This belief reflects LG CEO William Cho’s management philosophy, which states that the start and end of all innovation is the customer. Since taking charge of the company at the end of 2021, CEO Cho has continuously emphasized how accelerating customer experience innovation plays a critical role in improving customers’ lives. As a result of his astute direction, and as underscored by LG’s ‘Future Vision 2030’ document and recent brand reinvention, the company is actively expanding its CX innovation initiatives.
To boost the innovation of customer experience, the company has launched a company-wide project calling on all employees to ‘meet’ with customers directly to ‘hear’ their honest feedback and concerns in order to ‘empathize’ with them. As a part of this internal project that focuses on LG’s commitment to advancing CX, executives partook in an ‘on-site’ experience program designed to ensure the implementation of customer-centric management practices and policies. Last year alone, more than 280 LG executives from the Korean headquarters visited key offline sites to see firsthand a broad range of customer contact points and associated activities, including product purchase, phone consultation, rental, delivery and after-service care.
Many of these executives even visited Hi-Tele Service, an LG subsidiary that provides remote customer service. While there, the executives had the valuable opportunity to hear feedback direct from LG customers – giving them insight into how and where the CX might be further improved and refined.
On top of these activities, in order to ‘hear’ from customers, LG hosted seminars where employees could share CX innovation cases as well as programs where they could directly listen to customers’ stories. And, to boost ‘empathy’ for customers, the company is carrying out company-wide activities that enable employees to set their own customer and determine the value they can provide to these customers.
Customer value innovation is not just a task for management or teams that work directly with customers. It is the job of everyone at LG to make meaningful changes by rethinking and differentiating everything the company does from the customer’s perspective.
LG is committed to providing differentiated customer value. The company will continue to pursue a customer-centric way of working – one that is based on a detailed understanding of and empathy for its customers.
Not limited to HQ, our system of actively meeting, hearing and empathizing with customers is being put into place in LG offices around the world. In a dedicated series on , we will introduce how various LG teams and subsidiaries are making changes to reinvent CX, so stay tuned.
By Kang Je-nam, director of Customer Value Innovation Division at LG Electronics
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By News Reporter
At MODEX 2024, North America’s premier logistics exhibition, LG demonstrated its strong commitment to meeting the evolving needs of the global logistics industry. The company’s standalone booth featured a wide range of customized solutions for modern warehousing and smart factory environments – from order-picking robots to robot control systems incorporating high-speed communications technologies.
LG’s innovative AI-powered industrial robots headline a diverse lineup of solutions that can help fulfillment logistics companies enjoy a seamless digital transformation (DX). Consisting of two zones – the Distribution Center and Smart Factory – the company’s booth at MODEX provided real-world scenarios clearly illustrating the immense value and operational efficiency that LG’s robots can deliver.
Impressing visitors to the Distribution Center zone, the
link hidden, please login to view is a specialized AI-powered logistics robot with autonomous driving capabilities that can collect and transport items within a facility. The LG CLOi CarryBot is available in two types: a capable of sorting and storing various items, and a for loading and transporting large, heavy items. Travelling at speeds of up to 1.2 meters per second, LG CLOi CarryBot can swiftly carry goods or materials across expansive logistics warehouses. Thanks to Fast-X, LG’s optimized autonomous driving technology, the CLOi CarryBot is able to safely navigate its way around storage bays and work stations; automatically adjusting speeds in response to actual conditions. Visitors to LG’s booth at MODEX also had the opportunity to view LG’s high-load logistics robots, which are designed to transport fully-loaded pallets weighing up to 250 kilograms. For convenient management, the company’s pallet-moving robots integrate smoothly with customers’ existing Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). This allows for efficient task allocation, with the WMS able to communicate order information to, and explore optimal routes for, each robot connected to the system.
Inside the Smart Factory zone, LG exhibited robots, such as the Mobile Manipulator, that can play an active role in enhancing efficiency in smart factories. An autonomous mobile robot (AMR), the Mobile Manipulator is designed to improve productivity and quality control. This solution features multi-joint articulated arms that are capable of performing a range of complex actions. Unlike conventional robots, which can only handle a single task, the Mobile Manipulator can complete a wide variety of jobs, including transporting parts, assembling products and conducting quality inspections across diverse processes. It can also move autonomously between stations on a production line as and when required.
What’s more, LG introduced its brand-new robotic logistics platforms and solutions for smart factories, such as the Flex-RPS (Robotic Production System). Utilizing ‘collaborative’ robots that combine mobility with the attributes of multi-joint, single-arm robotic solutions, Flex-RPS can be installed and moved between different production or logistics areas, offering a new level of flexibility and operational efficiency. Additionally, LG showed off its low-floor AMR, which can help speed up workflow with its enhanced pallet-lifting capabilities.
LG has also introduced solutions, accompanied by LG’s private 5G network, that eventually increases the operational efficiency of logistics and smart factories. By leveraging the fast transmission speed and low latency of 5G, the solutions not only establish optimized movement routes for multiple logistics robots, moving simultaneously, but also prevent safety accidents using real-time monitoring and control.
With its showcase at MODEX 2024, LG underscored its dedication to pioneering innovative solutions for the logistics industry. LG will continue to apply its technology and design expertise, and its deep understanding of its customers’ needs, to usher in a brand-new era in logistics automation.
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By News Reporter
EPA and DOE Recognize LG Electronics for ‘Sustained Excellence’ in
Energy-Efficient Products, Environmental Sustainability Efforts
SEOUL, March 27, 2024 – LG Electronics (LG) has been named 2024 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year-Sustained Excellence by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy. This honor recognizes LG’s exemplary commitment to fighting climate change and protecting the environment through leadership in ENERGY STAR certified products and promotions. This marks the 11th time since 2012 that LG has been named Partner of the Year.
“ENERGY STAR supports LG’s ‘Innovation for a Better Life’ brand mission, which means creating a better life for people and a better future for our planet through smart life solutions,” said Chris Jung, president and CEO, LG Electronics North America. “2023 marked an inflection point for LG’s strategy to help drive the electrification movement across America with ENERGY STAR certified products – from heat-pump-enabled HVAC systems, water heaters and clothes dryers to induction cooktops and EV chargers, as well as energy storage and management systems – all enabling broader decarbonization goals.”
The EPA recognized LG for its robust participation in various ENERGY STAR campaigns and promotions, helping to educate tens of millions of American consumers about greener living with LG and ENERGY STAR, driving a record 8.3 billion consumer impressions. The 2024 Partner of the Year award recognizes a number of key LG ENERGY STAR accomplishments last year.
LG was the first to certify induction cooktops and ranges to the new ENERGY STAR cooking specification finalized in October 2023. LG also was ENERGY STAR Partner to certify dishwashers to the ENERGY STAR Version 7 specification, and all new models earned the “ENERGY STAR Most Efficient 2023” designation.
EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan congratulated LG and other ENERGY STAR award winners for “innovation and leadership in delivering cost-effective energy efficient solutions that create jobs, address climate change, and contribute to a healthier environment for all.” He said, “President Biden’s Investing in America agenda creates unprecedented opportunity to build a clean energy economy, and private sector partners through programs like ENERGY STAR are leading the way.”
Each year, the ENERGY STAR program honors a select group of businesses and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to energy efficiency and the transition to a clean energy economy. ENERGY STAR award winners lead their industries in the production, sale and adoption of energy-efficient products, homes, buildings, services and strategies. These efforts have saved more than 5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity over the past 30 years.
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