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A prestigious recognition of the company’s strategic adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to successfully raise productivity and shorten customers’ time-to-market.

Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. (ASE) announced today that its bumping factory in Kaohsiung has been inducted into the World Economic Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network (GLN), a community of manufacturing sites and value chains that are leaders in the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) cutting edge technologies. ASE’s bumping factory in Kaohsiung is amongst the 18 GLN sites announced by the WEF on January 13^th, joining the ranks of 132 leading manufacturers.

The increasing complexity of semiconductor chip manufacturing processes characterized by market disruptions in supply and demand, had caused unprecedented challenges for ASE Kaohsiung’s bumping factory. In the bumping operation, there are more than 100 process steps compared with traditional IC packaging operations. To streamline the manufacturing processes and optimize production, ASE strategically planned and deployed 4IR technologies across its operations. In particular, AI enabled processes helped ASE to improve manufacturing yields and accuracy, resulting in an increase in output by 67% and a reduction of order leadtime by 39%.

“By integrating 4IR technologies into their operations, Lighthouse companies are achieving double-digit impact on throughput, costs, and lead times,” said Francisco Betti, Head of Shaping the Future of Advanced Manufacturing and Value Chains, World Economic Forum. “In this next chapter of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, they are setting the pace across industries. Lighthouses are demonstrating how to scale advanced technologies across entire manufacturing networks and beyond towards suppliers and customers or new functions, such as procurement, logistics, and research and development,” he continued.

“We are extremely excited to join the ranks of 132 leading companies in the Global Lighthouse Network. At ASE, advancing our competitiveness and seizing new opportunities across diverse disciplines are central to our quest for manufacturing excellence,” said Sung-Fei Wang, Senior Vice President, ASE Inc, Kaohsiung. “As a premier semiconductor industry player, we are taking the lead to craft a smart manufacturing blueprint that optimizes technologies in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We hope to inspire more industry players to contribute to building a resilient global smart manufacturing ecosystem and accelerate digital transformation,” he continued.

About the Global Lighthouse Network

The Global Lighthouse Network is a community of production sites and value chains that are world leaders in the adoption and integration of the cutting-edge technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Lighthouses apply 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D-printing and big data analytics to maximize efficiency and competitiveness at scale, transform business models and drive economic growth, while augmenting the workforce, protecting the environment and contributing to a learning journey for all-sized manufacturers across all geographies and industries. The Global Lighthouse Network is a World Economic Forum project in collaboration with McKinsey & Co, factories and value chains that join the Network are designated by an independent panel of experts.