The decision to use a custom wire harness may be easy to make but when it comes to practice, it is not. Next thing you know, you are pitting technical specifications against your budget constraints, trying to determine whether that additional shielding is really necessary or just nice to have and whether you are soon to end up spending too much money on features that are not necessary in your product.
It’s a balancing act. Go too small and you end up having reliability problems in future. Make it cooler, and you wasted your budget on a harness that is actually in a tuxedo to a backyard barbecue. Then how do you strike that golden mean between functionality, cost and quality?
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Start With Your Actual Requirements, Not Your Aspirations
This is where most projects will get derailed at the very beginning. Individuals start with what they believe they need or what sounds interesting in a spec sheet and not what their product really requires in order to operate reliably in the desired environment.
Get real with yourself:
- What is the operating environment? Is it a harness into a climate controlled office machine or is it a tractor piece of farm gear that is going to be in mud, vibration and temperature changes?
- Which type of current and voltage shall we have? * How many times will this product be transported, flexed or be placed under some mechanical stress?
These are not mere considerations. The needs of a harness on a medical-purpose device in an indoor usage are wholly unlike those of a harness to be used in an automobile setting. Understanding real-world situations would help you forfeit both under-specification (operational failure) and over-specifications (over-costs).
Match Materials to Actual Conditions, Not Worst-Case Scenarios
The types of wire insulation, connector types, and protective sleeving are available in infinite variations with varied performance and prices. It is a temptation to use the best grade material that is on the market, just in case. This is where overengineering comes in though.
Unless your product requires a standard series of temperature functioning and will not be exposed to chemicals or extreme abrasion, then you are likely not going to need aerospace grade wire insulation. Likewise, connectors with gold plating may be excessive when you are not working in corrosive conditions or when you need the connector to make thousands of mating cycles.
That being said, do not scrimp on material that has a direct bearing on safety or even essential functionality. It is crucial to align the requirements in material specifications with reality and not potential possibilities. To get an idea of such trade-offs and where you can save money without losing reliability, a good wire harness manufacturer can assist you.
Consider Production Volume and Scalability
This is one of the surprises that people face: the best design harness to use in constructing 50 units has a different appearance compared to the one designed to produce 50,000 units.
- Low-Volume Production: More basic designs with easy to source components may sometimes be more reasonable despite having a higher cost per unit. You are not making the initial investment in custom tooling, fixtures, and specialized parts that only prove to be cost-efficient in large-scale.
- Massive Volumes: If you’re planning for higher volumes, investing in design optimization and wire harness production efficiency pays dividends. It could be custom connector, automated assemblies, or a little more complicated routing to save on assembly time. The original design cost is amortized over the thousands of units, reducing your total cost per harness.
Look into the future regarding your production path. Do you plan to scale up within six months? A year? The decisions of design that are made today have a potential to either enable that growth or cause redesign work that is costly in the future.
Don’t Ignore Testing and Certification Requirements
There is nothing that can stop a project like realizing too late in the product’s life that your harness design does not match the necessary certifications and test standards. It can be:
- UL listing
- Automotive standards
- Medical equipment regulations
- Industry-related requirements
These have to be put into consideration at the start. In some cases, these standards might need certain materials, tests, or documentation which increases the cost. However, these are not areas that you want to save money on. The cost of redesign and recertification of a harness is far much more than the initial cost of doing it right the first time.
Engage your engineering and manufacturing partner early to find out all the standards that can be used. This will avoid the embarrassing experience of figuring out how to build around low prices and features, only to discover afterwards that you have to start all over again after you discovered you overlooked a crucial certification specification.
Partner With the Right Manufacturing Expertise
It may be the decision of what matters most in the whole process. The right manufacturing partner does not simply make what you order, he assists you to correct your specifications by real experience in the field.
Find someone who probes into your application, makes assumptions, and proposes alternatives that you may not have thought about. A person with the experience of creating thousand harnesses in various industries has a unique insight into what is and what is not working.
They should be able to explaining trade-offs: “Yes, we can use this connector, but here is why this one would be a better fit to you with your volume and budget.” Such co-operative problem-solving is priceless in an endeavor to prevent excessively paying as well as overengineering.
Quality wiring harness solutions arise from the combination of your product knowledge and their manufacturing know-how. Neither side has all the answers, but collectively they can design a product that performs adequately without costing the world.
The Bottom Line
The decision to settle on the correct custom harness does not revolve around the lowest price or the most loaded design. It is all about knowing what you really need, specifications to practice, and having seasoned partners with whom you can take the time to work out the technical and financial trade-offs.
Take time and clarify your needs, be candid about your conditions of operation and volumes of production and do not neglect the certification homework. When you have the correct approach and the correct manufacturing partner you will have a harness that does just what you require—nothing more, nothing less—and at a price that is reasonable to both your product and your business.
