Now it’s time to take a close look at a small but competitive business making a difference for the Korean economy. This is the last in the four-part series on the businesses that stood out at the Korea Public Procurement Expo 2016. This week’s spotlight is on KSI Limited, a leading manufacturer of road safety fixtures. KSI Ltd is an innovator of guardrails. Its products gained attention from a great number of buyers at the expo. Here’s its CEO Chae Jong-sool채종술 to tell us more about the company.

We specialize in rolling guardrails. You’ve probably seen them while driving. Our guardrails are installed at sharp curves or accident-prone spots. When a car collides with an ordinary guardrail, the deformation rate is so high that the car tends to jump the rail and fall off the road. But our rolling guardrails transform shock energy into rotational energy to minimize damage and keep the car safely on the road.




In general guardrails placed along the edges of roads or bridges are made of steel. But KSI Ltd’s guardrails are made of yellow rubber barrels, resembling car tires in shape. These barrels can rotate, allowing them to turn a colliding car and absorb the shock of collision. The secret to returning the car to its original driving position lies in the material used in the rails.

The barrels are made of EVA, which is a highly shock-absorbent material used in sneaker soles. So they can absorb shock when a car collides into them and be restored to their original form with little damage, making repair or maintenance unnecessary. We patented the product in 2005. Making the barrels out of EVA required a high degree of technology, because EVA is a composite of many different compounds. The combination of those compounds is what determines the product’s success, so it’s a crucial part of the whole process. We worked really hard to achieve the right mixture and we have now succeeded.

EVA or ethylene vinyl acetate is used most often in sneaker soles and protective mats for children. This synthetic resin is lighter than rubber and more elastic than urethane. But, KSI Ltd had to strengthen the quality and structure of the material in order for the EVA safety fixtures to absorb the tremendous force of a traffic accident and return it back to the road safely. To achieve this goal, KSI Ltd founded an in-house research lab in 2005 and began studying ways to improve the material. Four years later in 2009, the company introduced cushion-type safety rollers and won a gold prize at the Seoul International Invention Fair. The safety rollers also passed the road collision tests in the United States and Europe in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Guardrails can be installed on the road only after they pass the actual collision test. Of all the collision tests in the world, the ones done in the United States are the toughest. We started preparing for the test in 2010 and our roller guardrail became the first such product in the world to pass the U.S. test in 2014. In the following year, we passed the European collision test to obtain the CE certification for a roller guardrail for the first time in the world.


These rolling barriers were the first roller-type safety cushions in the world to pass both the American and European collision tests. These innovative safety rails were introduced in industry magazine, World Highways, as a product that revolutionized the concept of guardrail.

Our rolling barriers are called safety rollers overseas. Safety rollers are better known in other countries than in Korea. Currently, we export to 16 countries and we signed an exclusive deal worth 4 million dollars to supply our products to the world’s second largest guardrail manufacturer in the U.S. last February. We’ve exported the products to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, as well as to several Southeast Asian countries. International interest in our products is growing steadily.



Having started as a small manufacturer named GSI in 1986, KSI Ltd has grown to become a solid enterprise. KSI Ltd receives technology transfer royalty from Gregory Industries, a major American specialty company in highway safety products. The key to KSI Ltd’s success is technology. Its CEO Chae Jong-sool is an engineer, who began learning steel production skills as a teenager. He always discusses new products with his employees and fearlessly steps up to new challenges. In fact, KSI Ltd applies for 7 or 8 patents every year and at present owns some 600 industrial property rights.

We have some 60 patents for our road safety fixtures and more than 500 design rights. Every product we develop can stand among the best in the industry and in the global market. Our company’s goal is to dominate the markets around the world.

KSI Ltd dreams of becoming the best in the field of road safety fixtures and marches steadily toward a future with no traffic accidents.