Structure-based similarity searches to improve the reuse of assemblies and functional units in plant engineering – use cases and implementation verification with a large language model as a search tool

In plant engineering and industrial solution business, the focus is on developing customer-specific products. At the same time, finding suitable templates from previous projects (adaptation design) is essential for efficient product development. Conventional search tools in PDM/ERP systems are not suitable for this purpose, which is why structure-based similarity search was proposed in an earlier article. In this article, a feasibility study is conducted to determine what typical use cases exist and whether these can be easily SME-implemented with a large language model (LLM) as a search tool.