Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1544155
18 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2026 Nolan Johnson: Wel- come, everyone. I'm very intrigued by what you're doing. How and why was the Innovation Advi- sory Team formed? George Jacob: The WHMA board felt that wire harness contract manufacturing needs to lead in innovation and technology. This initiative by the WHMA board is meant to lead; we shouldn't be behind. Arik Vrobel: As a collective, members of WHMA share the same problems: Wire harnesses are generally an afterthought by the OEMs. They are typically the last part designed and, because they're required to integrate the system, are often among the first major components or assemblies to be delivered. There's a very short gap between design and manufacturing. Because of that, there's a lot of pressure on wire harness designers to move into production quickly. Shortcuts are taken, and the designs are not validated at the design and engineering phases as they should be. That puts pressure on wire harness manufactur- ers to not only manufacture but also validate and, if necessary, improve the design for better manufac- turability. The manufacturing contracts are typically build-to-print; manufacturers don't get paid for this work, and they're underappreciated for their con- tribution to this very important domain. Ironically, contract manufacturers often have the deepest practical understanding of how these systems are actually built. Yet that knowledge rarely feeds back into the design process. One opportunity for the industry is to capture that manufacturing expertise digitally, so that better designs reach production from the start. As a board, WHMA has identified the need to promote initia- tives that help the industry progress and under- stand which tools to use, both to standardize and optimize how we navigate this very challenging domain to improve speed, quality, and consistency. Jacob: We surveyed WHMA members, which led us to focus on two areas of innovation. First, quoting a job. Given that each assembly is unique, it typically takes days or weeks to analyze the drawing, generate a bill of materials to obtain pricing, and define the processing time. Of course, Arik's company Cableteque is a pioneer in wire harness quoting, a process he has improved over the years. We also realized there's a big discon- nect between the ECAD companies and wire harness manufacturers, who are often not using ECAD software because of the cost of licenses, complexity of training, and the lack of available time for this workflow. Arik, as a software developer, what's your take on why the Innovation Advisory Team matters? Vrobel: My background began in wire harness manufacturing. I quite often wonder how it is that the best companies in the world have all these tools and engineers at their disposal, yet when it comes to wire harnesses, they do such an incom- plete job of helping their suppliers execute what they need. There's a huge gap in how companies handle design-to-manufacturing of wire harnesses compared to other domains, such as the mechan- ical or electronics assembly realms. What is the process like today? Vrobel: Wire harnesses are critical wherever they're used. They are among the most critical and complex components in the system, yet they're what tend to fail most often, and failures are often catastrophic. It's last to be designed and first to be integrated. Almost every customer purchase order I received while I was running a manufacturing company was already late by the time it reached us. We often heard, "We're past due, we're in inte- gration, and you're the last thing that's stopping the project." What typically happened was that we didn't find design problems until we started manufacturing. Ge orge Jac ob Arik Vrob el