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 search. Engineers, especially newer ones, spent hours locating the right drawing for replacement parts, as specifications vary by customer and installation date. Partnering with Japanese AI startup Recursive and using OpenAI models, Kuken built a search system and field app that lets engineers search by part number, drawing number, or by uploading an image or PDF. The app returns potential matches, including similar designs, and can read part numbers from screenshots. Kuken expects the tool to cut drawing search time by about 90% annually. Experienced engineers now mentor newer colleagues, who handle more jobs independently. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to review partner drawings, with prototype tests showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies. The company aims to pass engineering experience to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)