Kuken Industries searches 70 years of drawings in minutes

Kuken Industries, a major Japanese manufacturer of air conditioning and ventilation equipment, has digitized 70 years of engineering drawings but faced challenges in making them easily searchable. Engineers, especially newer ones, struggled to find the right drawings for replacement parts, often relying on experienced colleagues. To address this, Kuken partnered with Japanese AI startup Recursive and OpenAI to develop an AI-powered search system integrated into a field app. The app allows engineers to search by part number or by uploading images or PDFs of drawings or parts lists. OpenAI's models were chosen for their accuracy and cost-effectiveness. Initial results show that the tool is expected to cut drawing search time by about 90%, freeing up time for mentoring and independent work. Kuken is also developing an AI tool to review partner drawings, with prototype testing showing about 90% of flagged issues were genuine discrepancies. The initiative aims to preserve and transfer engineering expertise to the next generation.

(Source：OpenAI)