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 still struggled with slow searches, especially for newer engineers. Partnering with AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI models, Kuken built a search app that lets engineers find drawings by part number, image, or PDF screenshot. The tool is expected to cut drawing search time by about 90%, freeing experienced engineers to mentor and newer engineers to work more independently. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to review partner drawings, with prototype testing showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies, aiming to preserve engineering knowledge for future generations.

(Source：OpenAI)