In this issue, you will find the premier of our newest section, Wire & Harness Specifier, on pages 19 and 20. Beginning now and with each successive issue of Connector Specifier, we will devote several pages specifically to wire and wiring-harness technology. While the recent technical issues with Airbus’ A380 aircraft might be the most extreme example of the impact a harness can have on a transportation system’s ability to work properly (“The great big harness that couldn’t,” October/November 2007, page 7), it does not take a project of that complexity to prove a wiring harness’s importance.
As this issue is heading to press, senior editor Matt Vincent is attending the annual meeting of the Wiring Harness Manufacturers Association (WHMA). The annual event addresses both technical and business aspects of wiring-harness manufacturing. The actual topics set for presentation sound familiar, because they are right in the wheelhouse of what Connector Specifier has covered in its regular course of business; they include RoHS, materials costs, and standards.
One of the most meaningful presentations from last year’s WHMA conference was a panel discussion on doing business in China (again, right on the pulse of the connector industry as a whole). Several panelists spoke with experience about the opportunities and challenges inherent in such international business. Importantly, one of the panelists made it clear that wiring harness manufacturers can gain the most efficiency by outsourcing those of their products that are manufactured in long runs, with minimal or no variance in composition. Anything that can be considered a custom project, and includes swapping out materials at any time during production, and/or is manufactured in smaller quantities, is best kept at home.
Wiring harness manufacturers of today have tightened up their operations and are seizing that custom/small-run business; and from what I can see, there is a lot of that business to keep them busy. For all the talking-most or all of it legitimate-about the shipping of manufacturing to Asia, wiring harness production remains a vibrant and, most importantly, a necessary function performed in the United States.
Casco Manufacturing (www.cascomanufacturing.com) of Downers Grove, IL is a prime example of this market’s evolution over the past several years. I met the company’s executives last year when Casco was an exhibitor at a trade show attended by prospective buyers of some of the company’s telecommunications products. It didn’t take long to realize that Casco’s agility-the ease with which it can move and adapt-is one of its biggest assets and perhaps the single most important key to its success. Quick product turnaround, design and engineering capability, and strong customer support are among the business characteristics it boasts.
Those attributes differentiate Casco Manufacturing from much of the available outsourcing services. Yet, ironically, they probably do not separate the company from other wiring harness producers here in the United States. I use Casco as an example not to tell you that they are your first/best/only choice for having harnesses and cable assemblies. Rather, I mention them because I believe they exemplify the business model you will find today in U.S.-based wiring harness makers-and they just happen to be the manufacturer whose path I crossed about a year ago.
Companies that have a history in the harness-manufacturing industry have seen their businesses change dramatically in less than a decade. They have gotten leaner in more than one way. Yet those who continue to produce these products at an acceptable level of quality face their own business and technological challenges in this changed environment. We at Connector Specifier, through our coverage in our Wire & Harness Specifier section as well as our Wire & Harness Specifier e-mail newsletter, aim to keep you, and them, in tune with the environment in which we work.
Patrick McLaughlin
Editor-in-Chief
patrick@pennwell.com
