New Web Site for
Online Wiring Harness
Manufacturing Community
 
By Jennifer Read
 
Linius Technologies, a Massachusetts-based maker of software for wiring harness design, has announced the launch of a website to help streamline data communication and collaboration among anyone involved in the development of wiring harnesses and cable assemblies. HarnessHub.com enables wiring designers, manufacturers, part vendors and tooling suppliers to easily share and communicate design data electronically at one central location. The website allows companies to integrate their wiring harness design processes with other companies in their supply chain and is intended to reduce the time, cost and stress expended in the typical traditional process of wiring harness design. For example, manufacturers and part suppliers can turn pricing quotes around faster to designers if there is no delay in accessing documents of new or changed designs. With immediate electronic notification and messaging between each party involved, the iteractive process allows questions and problems to be addressed up front, eliminating many delays. This allows stronger, more efficient partnerships among supply chain participants, and speeds up the time to market for new products.

While Linius Technologies' main focus is its wire design automation software product, "EMbassy," the HarnessHub has been created to be data- and product-independent so that all of the industry can benefit. "The idea actually came to us from working within the Wire Harness Manufacturers' Association," commented Tim Alibozek, president of Linius. "The association is making great strides towards quality standards for the industry and has asked us to help define electronic design and manufacturing document formats. But we immediately ran into a cart leading the horse problem — it was going to be difficult for the industry to accept standards for electronic formats if the process to effectively exchange them was so poor. If the HarnessHub can improve the exchange process for everyone, standardization becomes possible." Linius developers realized that since EMbassy caters to both designers and manufacturers, the company is already partnered with many of the industry players. Consequently, they were in a neutral position to develop the HarnessHub. "Our goal is to let the industry drive it," concluded Alibozek.

HarnessHub home page where members
connect into their project communication centers.

Quinn Lawrence, Linius' director of strategic business, is positioning the HarnessHub as a neutral platform for the development of electronic standards. Information is the currency of growth for any business, according to Lawrence. The foundation for increased market share is strengthened when you improve your business process to handle information more efficiently than your competitors. Having the right information in the right place at the right time is crucial for management decision-making. The term "workflow" has been used to refer to the complete or partial automation of the business process that manages documents, information or tasks. This includes not only storage and security of the data but also how it is passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.

Lawrence explained that workflow management is a generic technology being implemented in a large number of diverse industries, such as banking, finance, healthcare, laboratory sciences, manufacturing, office automation, production, shipping, software engineering, and telecommunications. The competitive advantages of applying workflow technology are greatest for the early adopters. As technologically advanced manufacturers improve their ability to handle existing business more profitably, they reinvest their increased profits and availability to win new business. They emerge as powerful forces that can leverage their efficient business processes to produce new market opportunities.

In the early days of workflow management, the investment was significant, as proprietary systems using wide area networks required a large capital expense. The explosive growth of the Internet and exponential improvements in web technology have forever changed the way the world works. No longer is the desktop-oriented, homogenous computing model the rule in business processes. The World Wide Web has created a distributed, heterogeneous and network-centric computing model for users to manage.

This has created some problems, however. Companies can see the value of collaborative engineering, yet the challenges of interoperability, scalability and availability are beyond the capability of all but the largest companies with the resources to support them. For instance, an individual manufacturing or design company looking to set up a new electronic collaboration and storage process could take many months to develop workflow software themselves for their customers. Even if they were able to, their system's exclusiveness would disable them from leveraging the ideas of others in their industry. This approach is expensive and time-consuming and does not necessarily take advantage of the company's core competencies. The organization may know how to improve their workflow needs, and a better approach is to give them the ability to quickly define their workflow model in a continually supported external software model.

In the wire harness industry, workflow management includes defining and modeling the processes involved in engineering, selling, manufacturing, and supporting the product.

The HarnessHub process is straightforward, secure and cost-effective.
After registration, you are all set up to immediately begin creating,
managing and collaborating on projects with other members.
 
 

The following activities must be synchronized:

• Request for quotation or engineering action
• Design verification
• Design review
• Bill of material
• Costing/quotation
• Manufacturing implementation
• Engineering change orders
• Document management for product definition
• Configuration management
• Test, maintenance, and diagnostic information
 
 

Each process requires information to flow into and out of several discrete organizations. This data exchange, in the way it is performed in the typical situation, is messy, inefficient, and redundant. Using an electronic data transfer process can help improve the process.

The basic HarnessHub.com transaction involves three steps. First, a member such as a wire harness designer builds a "project." A project typically consists of all of the design data required to manufacture the wiring, e.g. the bill of materials, wire list, and a nailboard drawing. Second, the project creators electronically alert team members online of the new data, asking them to take action. They might then perform a pricing quote on the design data, make adjustments due to an engineering change, or ask a question about the design. All communication is in the form of e-mail, as members are sent notifications containing direct links to the project area on the website.

The third step in the process is the electronic collaboration, or dialogue that continues until the project is complete. Completed projects are then archived on the system. The online process mimics the work-in-process atmosphere present in many supply chains, but is much faster and more efficient.

In addition, one section of the website will be devoted to work being done on standards for electronic formats, such as design data (BOM, wirelist, nailboard), as well as quality issues and other WHMA standards.

The website was tested at several beta sites before release. Users report that better project control and faster turnaround of each step of the process will more than justify their continued involvement in the HarnessHub. Terry O'Brien, programs manager at Raychem Interconnect, a division of Tyco Electronics, is a beta site user. "Raychem Interconnect is excited about the new technology the HarnessHub is delivering to the industry. As a company concentrating in design services, manufacturing and part supply management, we can see how it will surely help save time and money during the iterative process of developing the final designs for wire harnessing projects. We expect some OEMs to save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. We are working closely with Linius as partners to take advantage of this opportunity."

The cost to use HarnessHub.com is explained on the website. The first month (February) is free of charge so interested parties can check out the process and see how the HarnessHub can help them. Lawrence claims the cost is less than the total cost of the traditional process, and exponentially less than the cost to build and support a comparable electronic system. "The real value is the step up we all can get in instant communication," he said.

Quinn Lawrence can be reached at Linius Technologies, 606-384-4900 or by E-mail at qlawrence@linius.com. http://www.HarnessHub.com should be up and running for the industry by press time.