About Automotive wire harness manufacturer: Choosing the best and ideal automotive harness manufacturer can be daunting today.
This article will explain how to outsource the right automotive wire harness manufacturer for your business and why you should outsource one. But before that, what are cable assembly contract manufacturers?
Table of Contents
- What are automotive wire harness manufacturers?
- Why do you need an automotive wire harness manufacturer
- What does your automotive wire harness manufacturer need?
- The wiring harness manufacturing process
- How to qualify a wire harness manufacturer to ensure a successful contract
- Choose Cloom as your automotive wire harness manufacturer.
What are automotive wire harness manufacturers?
An automobile wire harness assembles wires, connectors, and other electronic components that transmit electrical power and signals to car systems.
Companies that assemble them are known as wire harness manufacturers. Also, they usually perform on-site services, such as crimping, cutting, stripping, soldering, and assembling wires.
Why do you need an automotive wire harness manufacturer
There are many benefits of outsourcing your wiring harness and cable assemblies needs.
Expertise
A wire harness manufacturer possesses many years of experience in manufacturing quality cable assemblies and wire harnesses.
If you employ your wire harness manufacturing team, you might miss out on such expertise.
And if your business is small or medium-sized, employing your inexperienced team of manufacturing wire harnesses will drain your resources dry.
Lower production costs
The expenses of manufacturing wire harnesses will rise if you do it yourself or use your business.
From equipment cost to labor cost to extra expenses, like taxes, insurance, overheads, and benefits, you will need to cover them all. In the long run, this will mean an increase in the prices of your products.
However, when you outsource a wire harness manufacturer, you will save costs.
Efficient production capabilities
If your wire harness production is inefficient, you will eventually face many inventory crises and product shortages. That can be catastrophic, especially if your product’s demand suddenly rises.
However, by outsourcing a wire harness, you will be engaging manufacturers who own the essential infrastructure for manufacturing large volumes at one go.
Wire harness manufacturing employees check production quality and efficiency.
More capital for you to invest in your business
Therefore, instead of spending your hard-earned money on establishing the infrastructure needed to manufacture wiring harnesses, you can free up a lot of business capital by outsourcing a wire harness manufacturer.
Sourcing raw materials at cheaper rates
The wire harness manufacturers in low-cost countries, such as China, can source raw materials at relatively cheaper rates compared to what you can manage at home.
Flexibility to work with different manufacturers based on needs
You will require different equipment for creating different wire harness designs. Investing in all the equipment may not be financially feasible.
Instead, we recommend choosing the flexibility route and working with more than one wiring harness manufacturer who already owns the machinery to deliver your custom wire harness order.
What does your automotive wire harness manufacturer need?
The more precise specifications and detailed documents you can provide, the fewer problems will be on the assembly floor.
- The bill of material with part numbers
- Detailed image connectors showing pin locations
- Finished harness test specialization
- Wire lists specifying nets, colors, and connector pin-outs
- Full assembly drawing with assembly instructions and tolerance and label locations.
The wiring harness manufacturing process
With the documentation, the contract manufacturer will follow a general process in building your wiring harness.
Design review
First, your manufacturer will evaluate your bill of material and other documentation to ensure everything they require is in place.
They will also examine your specified parts to confirm if they are the best choice regarding performance, availability, and cost. If not, they will look for the available replacements.
Material preparation
Once the bill of material and other documentation is finalized, the contract manufacturer will buy the materials and components required for the testing and production of the wire harness.
Assembly documentation
During procurement, the contract manufacturer will create assembly documentation for the wire harness manufacturing according to your input, which includes illustrations and images, detailed assembly steps, and test procedures.
Moreover, the contract manufacturer will create the assembly panel with all the essential pegs positioned at all the specified locations.
Wire harness production
Now, the contract manufacturer will build the wire harness. The assembly technicians will cut the wire length and lay it on the created assembly panel according to the production instructions.
The contract manufacturer will then add connectors, tie together bundle wires, and attach labels.
Wire harness production
QA
The wire harness will then go through the testing to check its continuity.
The contract manufacturer will also test the harness for fit if the system it is meant for is available on-site. Besides, they will check the harness for labeling and construction.
How to qualify a wire harness manufacturer to ensure a successful contract
Here are the eight vital things for your prospective contract manufacturer to qualify them.
Wire harness manufacturing equipment
Inquire if the equipment they use to manufacture their products is faster than you do manually. For example, whether their equipment offers insulation removal and consistent cut length.
Delivery lead times
You require assurance from your manufacturer that they can manufacture a certain number of products within a given timeline.
We recommend asking your manufacturer the steps they take, if any, to streamline and speed up delivery.
ISO 9001 quality procedures and standard
ISO 9001 stresses structures and quality companies should follow to continuously improve procedures, standards, and processes.
For example, a quarterly ISO compliance audit reviews documented errors and requests documentation of how errors were addressed to ensure they will never happen again.
Therefore, ISO certification is not only a check-off list but also a continuous battle to ensure employee safety, pass audits, and stay approved as a top manufacturer, continuously improving every quarter.
Can they accept your purchase terms?
Buying on terms lets you pay the invoice thirty days after shipping the product. A discount is often provided, such as a 2% 10 Net 30 (you will get a 2% discount if you pay within 10 days).
If you have more businesses to offer the vendor, you will have a higher chances of demanding your purchase terms.
However, if you only have a small number of businesses, you must inquire politely about their terms.
Do they accept blanket orders?
Most wire harness manufacturers will allow you to buy 1,000 pieces and ship only 250 per month. You only need to pay the invoice for each shipment once it ships.
Ideally, you are committing to buy 1,000 pieces without paying. Therefore, the vendor can purchase in bulk and offer a better price.
This is perfect for the customer and vendor. For instance, the vendor can plan their production schedule seamlessly if the inventory is readily available.
Do they manufacture buffer quantities?
When fast deliveries are a major concern, it would be great to have an additional buffer quantity produced and sitting on the shelf for immediate release.
For example, if you purchase quantities of 250 wire harnesses at a time, you can request the 250 pieces to be made on the shelf for quick shipping.
Once you release the wiring harness on the shelf, the vendor should start building the next batch of 250 pieces for your next call.
Do they pay for shipping?
Ask your prospective contract manufacturer if there is a threshold for free shipping.
For example, if you make an order for $1,000 to receive free shipping, that will be perfect and easy for you.
And when you add that free shipping to the 2% discount, the contract manufacturer will contribute to significant money savings over time.
For instance, you must leverage every opportunity to increase quality and save money.
Do they have a list of wire harnesses and assembly services?
Can your prospective contract manufacturer cut cables and wires as you expect?
Can they meet tight tolerance, terminate, solder, tin dip, and follow difficult specification sheets?
Ask about their quality process to know how easily and quickly they produce that information.
If you receive an email within ten minutes with five PDFs showing all the detailed quality control processes, then you have the right contract manufacturer.
Choose Cloom as your automotive wire harness manufacturer.
Here are the reasons you should choose Cloom as your automotive wire harness manufacturer
Rich experience
As automobiles become more specialized, their design needs wiring considerations that go beyond the standard wiring harnesses.
At Clooms, we design and manufacture custom automotive wire harnesses for cars of all types and sizes, meeting the desires of consumers and the needs of today’s energy market.
Besides, we have been innovating production and design processes for most of the world’s top OEM brands, including the following:
- Agricultural equipment and implements
- Appliances
- Buses
- Boats
- ATVs
- Recreational cars
- Commercial cars
- Generators
- Large engines
- Construction Equipment
- Small engines
- Emergency vehicles
- Marine craft
- Military cars
- Golf carts
- Lawn care equipment
- Crewless aerial vehicles (UAVs
- Utility cars
- Powersports
- Tractor-trailer chassis
- Semi-trucks
Capabilities
We work with every customer to create exactly the cable assembly or wire harness they require, from simple cable assembly to complex electromechanical device wiring. Our automotive electrical products capabilities include the following:
- Sensor cable
- Primary automotive wire and cables
- Specialty wire harnesses
- Multi-conductor assemblies
- Battery cable assemblies
- Electrical integration systems
- EMI/RFI suppression products
We also manufacture and design automotive wiring harnesses and cable assemblies with special features.
From extremely elongated cars featuring specialized lighting, video, and audio to exploration cars that need GPS and long-range communication, we work with customers to design the right wiring harness for each type of automotive.
We also consider the needs of your team to build custom automotive wiring harnesses that are easily understood and aesthetically pleasing, minimizing installation and training times.
Moreover, we can manufacture and store the entire cable assembly or components in any quantity, maintaining the original quality while processing new orders at reduced lead times.
Management
With our cross-industry expertise and vertical integration with wire manufacturing, we have all the necessary resources and services and extensive global automotive experience to handle your entire program.
We have the experience to do everything from concept, design and development to evaluation and manufacturing, prototyping, product validation, warranty analysis and quality assurance.
We will work with you using your work or drawing to design automotive wire harnesses that make the most of the vast range of alternative energy sources, including plug-in vehicles and LPG, flexible fuel, and natural gas-powered cars.
Equipment
Our branding equipment and custom potting and overmolding capabilities enable us to design wire harnesses for automobiles exposed to any conditions: desert heat to arctic ice, arid to humid, and mud to dust.
Certification
As a CSA and UL manufacturer, Cloom designs and manufactures products of the highest quality at best prices.
Moreover, we have manufacturing facilities in Asia, such as China’s ISO/TS 16949-certified assembly plant.
So, we can create and ship wire harnesses and cable assemblies however and whenever it best suits your needs.
Conclusion
Cloom has offered our customers superior electromechanical cables and wires with affordable prices and low turnaround times.
Our team of highly skilled engineers has the professional experience and expertise to manufacture a custom automotive wire harness to suit your exact needs and specifications.
