The design and planning of cable harness assemblies

Bundles of cables known as harnesses are an essential and costly but often overlooked feature of electromechanical systems. This paper describes the p roblems and difficulties associated with cable harness design and planning and reviews published material on the subject. A case study approach involv ing a number of advanced manufacturing organizations was used to confirm cu rrent industrial practice. Cable harness design and planning is revealed to comprise a sequential, iterative set of lengthy activities carried out lat e in the overall product development cycle. It was found that there has bee n little attempt to integrate any of the core activities involved. The pape r concludes with a proposal for a new concurrent engineering approach to ca ble harness design that makes use of an immersive virtual environment withi n which stages in the process can be addressed.