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40 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2026 F E AT U R E I N T E RV I E W BY N O L A N J O H N S O N , I - C O N N ECT 0 07 BREAKING THE MANUAL QUOTING BOTTLENECK in Wire Harness A rik Vrobel has spent more than 35 years in wire harness manufacturing—starting in EL-Com, his father's shop, building it into a nationally recognized contract manufacturer, and ultimately selling to Aptiv/Winchester in 2021. But retirement didn't last long. Within months, Arik was back, not as a manufacturer this time, but as a technologist. His new company, Cableteque, is building the quoting and data automation plat- form he always wished existed. As co-chair of the WHMA Innovation Advisory Team (IAT) and the driving force behind an industry-wide quoting pilot program, Arik is now working to solve the problem at scale: an industry where 74% of manufactur- ers describe quoting as "manual, time-intensive, and too slow," and where a single quote pack- age routinely takes 9–10 days to complete, even though a contract manufacturer typically wins only one in five bids. Nolan Johnson: Arik, what are the problems in wire harness today, and how does Cableteque fit into the solution? What is the value proposition for manufacturers? Arik Vrobel: From my personal experience, as well as our Cableteque team and industry peers, a huge challenge for wire harness manufacturers is transitioning from the OEM requirements to