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 in searching them efficiently. Engineers, especially newer ones, spent hours locating the right drawings for replacement parts. Partnering with AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI's models, Kuken developed a search system that allows engineers to search by part number or image uploads. The tool is expected to cut drawing search time by about 90%, freeing experienced engineers for mentoring and enabling newer engineers to work more independently. Kuken is also prototyping an AI tool to check partner drawings, with about 90% of flagged issues being genuine discrepancies. The initiative aims to preserve and transfer engineering knowledge to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)