Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries, a Japanese manufacturer of air conditioning and ventilation equipment with a large share of Japan's cooling tower market, has digitized 70 years of engineering drawings but faced challenges in making them easily searchable, especially for newer engineers. Partnering with Japanese AI startup Recursive, an official OpenAI partner, Kuken built an AI-powered search system using OpenAI's models and API. Engineers can search by part number or upload images/PDFs to find matching drawings quickly. Kuken reports that the tool is expected to cut drawing search time by about 90% over a year, freeing experienced engineers to mentor and newer engineers to work more independently. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to check partner drawings for discrepancies, with prototype testing showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine. The initiative aims to preserve and pass on engineering knowledge to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)