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 struggled with searchability. Engineers, especially newer ones, had to rely on experienced colleagues to locate the right drawings, often taking half a day. Kuken partnered with Japanese AI startup Recursive and OpenAI to build a search system and field app that lets engineers search by part number or upload an image or PDF of a drawing or parts list. OpenAI's models performed well on accuracy and cost. Kuken expects the tool to cut drawing search time by about 90% over a year. Engineers now spend less time searching and more time studying drawings, mentoring, and taking on new challenges. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to check partner drawings, with prototype testing showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies. The company aims to use AI to pass engineering skills to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)