Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1544155
APRIL 2026 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 45 That's huge. Has the OEM developed this design in a digital tool, then completely stripped all that digital information out, only for you to recombine it into something digital? Correct. OEMs quite often don't give their suppliers the digital twin of what they've developed. Some- times it's because they don't know it's important, or it's because of concern about an IP leak. Even if the OEM does supply the digital twin, most compa- nies can't read it. The typical wire harness manu- facturer simply cannot afford multiple expensive ECAD licenses to access the data, so they request that their OEM supply drawings. It's like a PCBA manufacturer getting a Gerber file but not having a Gerber reader. We have developed the capability to interpret whatever format the design comes in and ingest it into our digital platform in seconds to minutes, for as many files as you have. That's the first automation hurdle we had to overcome. When you're analyzing the PDFs, are you primarily looking for the interconnect data, or is there more? We are looking at the bill of materials and the schematic, which you call interconnect data. We're documenting how everything is supposed to be connected because the bill of materials isn't enough; it often doesn't include all the parts. When we have both the interconnect or design data and the bill of materials, then we do a lot of processing. This can include design rule checks, as well as validating and creating downstream processes. But at its most basic form, we do a lot with just the bill of materials. Because we're connected to all the top distribu- tors, once we've digitized the bill of materials, we can see which distributors have the necessary parts in stock. We can estimate the inventory risk and the pricing. Often, manufacturers have pre- ferred relationships with some distributors. We can leverage those relationships and reflect their contract prices in our reports. We do this in less than 10 minutes, compared to the current manual, email-based process. Because of the variability of pricing and delivery of parts, by the time they finish the old process, all the information is obsolete. For example, if you only look at the first or second component suppli- Arik, what led you to do this work? I joined my father in the family business straight out of school. I grew up in this industry, and I've felt its ups and downs and challenges over many years. We became very successful by working as an engineering partner to our OEM. We solved all those sourcing and design errors in the data package. We used brute force. We had the right engineers to do all this work, which enabled us to build a competitive advantage and become one of the more successful companies. Our big push was in the commercial space sector. As that industry grew, we grew with it. I sold my company at the end of 2021 and retired after a fairly short transition. Retirement lasted maybe two or three months before I had a calling to return to the industry and solve this problem. This industry is misunderstood, under- represented, and undervalued. I'm uniquely capable of addressing the problems, as I under- stand the manufacturing processes and needs, and I have the resources and passion to do so. I just wanted to figure out why it hasn't been solved yet. For me, tech is about changing how the industry works. Not just to be a successful company, but to make the industry and our end customers more successful. This is the reason for my drive and passion. Now, we have 50 people on our team, and they all share the same passion and feel the same need. A lot of our staff have come from the in- dustry; we have software developers, but we're not software people. We are wire harness people first, solving a real-life problem with software. For the wire harness industry, the tailwinds are real. Reshoring created nearly 300,000 manufac- turing jobs in North America in 2023 alone, and that trend has only accelerated. Wire harness manufacturers that can respond faster, quote more accurately, and win more of the business they quote — they're going to capture a dispro- portionate share of that opportunity. The com- panies that are still running three-week manual quote cycles are going to lose to the ones that respond in a day. The market is rewarding speed right now in a way it hasn't before.