Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries, a major Japanese manufacturer of air conditioning and ventilation equipment, has digitized and deployed an AI-powered search system to quickly access its 70-year archive of engineering drawings. Previously, finding the correct drawing for a replacement part could take half a day and required experienced engineers' knowledge. Partnering with Japanese AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI's models, Kuken built a search tool that lets engineers find drawings by part number, image, or PDF upload. The system is expected to reduce drawing search time by about 90%, freeing engineers to focus on design improvements and mentoring. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to review partner drawings, with prototype tests showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies. The initiative aims to preserve and transfer engineering expertise to newer generations.

(Source：OpenAI)