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 problems and difficulties associated with cable harness design and planning and reviews published material on the subject. A case study approach involving a number of advanced manufacturing organizations was used to confirm current industrial practice. Cable harness design and planning is revealed to comprise a sequential, iterative set of lengthy activities carried out late in the overall product development cycle. It was found that there has been little attempt to integrate any of the core activities involved. The paper concludes with a proposal for a new concurrent engineering approach to cable harness design that makes use of an immersive virtual environment within which stages in the process can be addressed.