Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries, a leading Japanese manufacturer of cooling towers and ventilation equipment, has digitized 70 years of engineering drawings but still faced challenges in retrieving them efficiently. Engineers often spent half a day searching for the right drawing, and newer engineers relied heavily on experienced colleagues. Partnering with Japanese AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI models, Kuken built a search system and field app that allows engineers to search by part number, drawing number, or even a screenshot. The app reads part numbers and returns possible matches, including similar designs. Kuken reports that the tool is expected to cut drawing search time by about 90% over a year. Experienced engineers now spend saved time mentoring, printing costs are reduced, and newer engineers handle more jobs independently. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to check partner drawings, with prototype testing showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies. The company aims to use AI to pass engineering expertise to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)