Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries, a major Japanese manufacturer of cooling towers and ventilation equipment, has digitized 70 years of engineering drawings but faced challenges for newer engineers to locate the right records efficiently. By partnering with AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI models, Kuken developed a search system that allows engineers to find drawings by part number, image, or PDF in minutes instead of hours. The tool is expected to cut search time by about 90%, free up experienced engineers for mentoring, reduce printing costs, and enable newer engineers to work more independently. Kuken is also prototyping an AI tool to check partner drawings for discrepancies, with about 90% of flagged issues being genuine, aiming to pass engineering expertise to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)