One worker, 400 circuit breakers an hour: Inside HD Hyundai Electric's AI-powered smart factory

At HD Hyundai Electric's distribution campus in Cheongju, visited Thursday, the molded case circuit breaker (MCCB) production line pairs an articulated robot with a machine vision camera at every stage. The cameras scan incoming components for defects while the robots carry out repetitive assembly tasks.

Just one person is assigned to a line that turns out about 400 MCCBs an hour — a single employee at the end of the line whose only job is to package the finished products.

"Through 14 identical production lines, the distribution campus can produce up to 3,000 MCCBs a day," said Bae Byeong-cheol, a senior engineer in HD Hyundai Electric's distribution solutions division. MCCBs, which protect electrical circuits from overloads, are among the key devices seeing explosive demand growth amid the AI-driven power equipment boom.

Completed last year and in operation since February, HD Hyundai Electric's Cheongju distribution campus is a rare AI-based smart factory in the power equipment industry. The facility produces distribution products — including MCCBs, air circuit breakers (ACBs), vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) and magnetic switches — with an annual production capacity of about 8.5 million units.

Distribution equipment is the product category HD Hyundai Electric is positioning as the star of a second power equipment boom, following transformers. The logic is straightforward: distribution equipment safely routes the power that transformers generate to end users. That is why the company designed the distribution campus as an automated factory from the outset — a preemptive move to get ahead of anticipated market demand.

The campus's defining feature is that it extends AI not just to production but to the entire logistics chain — the first such application in the power equipment industry. An automated system oversees everything from feeding materials into production lines and storing them in the warehouse to final shipment. It is also linked to systems that coordinate sales forecasts and production supply plans.

On the ACB production line, incoming materials were automatically inspected inside a large warehouse management system (WMS) unit. Once cleared, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) took over transport duties. "When a work order comes in based on the factory's production schedule, the robots move the required materials directly to the production line," a factory official said.

Unlike conventional transport robots that follow fixed routes, AMRs plot their own paths. Warehouse management is also handled by robots. In a storage area lined with 10-meter-high shelving that stretches as far as the eye can see, 20 AMRs operate alongside just two human workers assigned to final inspection.

According to HD Hyundai Electric, the distribution campus has achieved a 93% automation rate on its production lines. Annual production capacity has grown from 5 million to 8.5 million units as a result, while the workforce has been reduced by 30%. The company plans to reach an annual capacity of 13 million units by 2030.

The campus's automation system is also set to be extended to other domestic and overseas factories. "Transformer manufacturing still requires skilled workers and is not easy to automate, but the logistics system that manages parts procurement and shipment can generate synergies with other factories," Executive Vice President Lee Chang-ho said. "We are working with our in-house AI division to apply it to each process."

Distribution equipment currently accounts for about 15 percent of HD Hyundai Electric's sales. Backed by the new campus, the company aims to push that share to as much as 30 percent — a portfolio diversification move designed to cushion the eventual slowdown in AI data center-driven transformer orders.

The company's view is that a wave of distribution equipment orders will inevitably follow once the initial surge in transformer orders runs its course, since distribution equipment is what delivers power reliably to end users. Orders for distribution equipment are already picking up in the market. HD Hyundai Electric's distribution equipment sales have grown consistently, rising from 451 billion won ($292 million) in 2021 to 602.8 billion won in 2022, 644.2 billion won in 2023, 745.9 billion won in 2024, and 655.6 billion won in 2025. "Next year's distribution equipment earnings will start to reflect AI data center infrastructure projects in earnest," Lee added.

HD Hyundai Electric has also been highlighting to customers in recent discussions that it is the only domestic company producing the full power equipment value chain.

"Our differentiator is that rather than selling a single product, we can offer distribution equipment and other power devices together as a one-stop service," Lee said. "Customers are also responding positively to package purchasing as a way to build stable interconnected systems across their power equipment."