You could say Hyundai’s Electro-
Mechanical Research Institute (HEMRI) is
Lee Choong-dong’s baby. When Lee began
working at HEMRI in 1997, there were just three
other researchers besides himself. Now it’s a thriving
research center of HHI, with about 200
researchers, 140 of whom hold masters’ degrees
and doctorates. Lee is particularly proud of the fact
that the robots the institute developed are now
making a major contribution to the company’s
overall sales.
Lee has been involved in the research side of
HHI ever since joining the company’s Maritime
Research Institute in 1985, after getting both a masters’
and doctorate from the University of
California, Berkeley in mechanics and structural
engineering. After HEMRI was established, he has
been instrumental in almost all aspects of the
growth of the institute, from recruiting researchers
to building the institute’s first home.
HEMRI has assumed a crucial role within HHI
as the central research and development unit in the
mechanical and electric fields. These are core technologies
that are applied not only to electric
machines and systems, industrial machinery and
robotics, but also to core areas in shipbuilding, offshore
engineering and plants.
Lee has a storehouse of memories from his
years at HEMRI, but one he likes to recount most is
when HHI had to deliver a 40,000-ton jacket to
Exxon in San Francisco in 1989. Lee says at the
time, the project, which involved loading the huge
jacket onto a barge ship, was unheard of. It needed
complex structural engineering skills involving
jacket structure and damage control. Lee was
instrumental in realizing this feat utilizing load out
technology. It was a first for any shipbuilder. Lee
recalls the surprised look on the Exxon supervisor’s
face when Lee handed him the documents
outlining this method. Lee says the supervisor realized
how innovative
this technology
was and treated
these documents
as if they
were classified.
Lee views
HEMRI’s future
as going in two
basic directions.
The first is to
focus on developing
core technologies
of HHI’s main products in order to
enhance their competitiveness. The second is to
pioneer new industries and to develop core technologies
for them.
One area that Lee sees as crucial is the development
and commercialization of environmentallyfriendly
industries. He pinpoints the field of electric
cars and other electrical items, distributed generation
systems, and alternative energy sources
such as solar energy, wind energy and batteries.
He says the day is not far off when the institute
will be developing ships that run on electricity.
Lee adheres to three guiding principles in all
his research projects. Profitability, relative applicability
to the workplace, and productivity. Lee
believes that in order to realize such goals, he
needs to recruit and nurture personnel that hold
creative, dynamic and ambitious attitudes. Not
unlike the young man Lee himself remembers
being when he joined the company some 20 years
ago. Lee also says he aims to promote a research
atmosphere where an entrepreneurial spirit based
on responsibility and a firm commitment to results
can flourish.
The writer, Monica Sohn is a journalist based in Seoul.
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