Page 66
www.us-
tech.com
Model-Based Engineering for Wire Harness Manufacturing
By Sven Neeser, Produce Domain Director, and John Judkins, Engineering for Manufacture Technical Director, Integrated Electrical Systems, Mentor, a Siemens Business
E
ngineering and manufacturing methods common across the industry have been in use for
decades and are showing their limi- tations in a new era. Wire harness manufacturing continues to be an extremely labor-intensive process. Today, approximately 85 per-
cent of all wire harness manufactur- ing operations are carried out manu- ally. With growth comes fresh chal- lenges and new pressures on the industry. To support the greater number of electrical and electronic systems, some of which are very sophisticated, wiring harnesses are becoming extremely complex. Manufacturers must accommo-
date all of the possible configurations of the product, such as today’s advanced automobiles, a number that frequently rockets into the tens of mil- lions. While manufacturing these com- plex systems, companies have to meet very tight timelines, exacting quality requirements and minimize the cost and weight of the harness. Fragmented design and manu-
facturing processes lead to manual data transfer and reentry between domains. Recreating and reentering the transferred design data into each of these systems, such as CAD, pro- duction, assembly board design, or
costing system, etc., is slow, error- prone and inefficient.
Creating Work Instructions As manufacturing engineers
make changes to improve the manu-
level process from design engineering through product engineering, manu- facturing engineering and generation of manufacturing documentation is complete with Microsoft Office appli- cations and AutoCAD drawings. The
This is no longer acceptable. New
product introduction cycles can take months, and design changes up to a few weeks to be fully implemented. Manual data sharing and reentry causes mistakes that cost money, need time to fix and even worse, can jeop- ardize a good customer relationship. The accelerating pace of pro-
gram milestones also means that manufacturing engineers have little time to optimize the manufacturing process, leading to a suboptimal process from the beginning. One task that can be particularly
Wire harness manufacturing is still a labor-intensive process that relies on manual assembly.
facturability of the harness, these changes are often lost in the transi- tion of data between teams. Even in state-of-the-art facilities, the high-
information is passed along to the next person in the chain, who manu- ally recreates the non-digital informa- tion in another format or style.
challenging is the creation of work instructions. With current methods, creating work instructions is a diffi- cult, time-consuming and challenging job that requires skill and expertise to complete accurately and on time. Work instructions that are late or low- quality can lead to inadequate and unsatisfactory workstations, further leading to assembler errors. Errors that are found during testing cause engineers to perform lengthy reworks, or even scrap the faulty harness entirely, raising unexpected costs.
Tribal Knowledge Another significant challenge is
managing what is known as tribal Continued on next page
Award-winning solutions. Call: (618) 205 5007
For all your workbench needs.
bofaamericas.com
Fume Extraction and Filtration Systems
Mobile Extraction Arm Extraction
Most Popular Hand Crank Adjust
Cabinet Extraction Tip Extraction
July, 2019
EMAIL:
sales@bofaamericas.com WEB:
bofaamericas.com
Electric Adjust Packaging Benches
1proline.com PH: 800 739 9067 BOFA AMERICAS, INC
CALL: (618) 205 5007 FAX: (866) 707 2632
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
