Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries manufactures air conditioning and ventilation equipment, including cooling towers, and holds a major share of Japan's cooling tower market. When a cooling tower needs a replacement part, engineers must consult drawings spanning 70 years of installations. Previously, finding the right drawing could take half a day and required knowledge of which name or number to look up. To help engineers at all experience levels search independently, Kuken partnered with Japanese AI startup Recursive to build a search system and field app using OpenAI's models and API. Engineers can search by part number or upload an image or PDF of a drawing or parts list. Kuken expects the tool to cut drawing search time by about 90% over a year, reduce printing costs, and free experienced engineers to mentor newer colleagues. Newer engineers can handle more jobs independently. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to check partner drawings for discrepancies; in prototype testing, about 90% of flagged issues were genuine. The company aims to use AI to pass engineering skills and decision-making experience to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)