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Wire Harness Manufacturing Software​

E3.formboard & Harness Builder for E3.series
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Optimize Wire Harness Design for Efficient Manufacturing​

Wire harnesses are essential components in various electrical systems, from automotive and aerospace applications to industrial equipment. Designing and manufacturing wiring harnesses can be complex and time-consuming, involving multiple stages and specialized expertise. However, the right tools, techniques, and strategies can streamline the process and improve efficiency and quality. With the E3.series tool suite, it is simple to take wire harnesses from the initial concept and design to production and testing. 

Wire Harness Design Software

Wire Harness Manufacturing Documentation

E3.formboard is a complete solution for creating wiring harness drawings for manufacturing. On any sheet size, one or more manufacturing drawings can be created. Automatic functionality makes placing, arranging, and dimensioning the harness and its segments easier. There is a complete integration of E3.cable and E3.formboard. With E3.series top-down or bottom-up design approach, projects can either start with the logical interconnection data or the harness layout. The logical interconnection data defined in E3.cable is used directly in E3.formboard, and any changes reflect automatically in the other when made in either module.

Harness Builder 2017

E3.formboard drawings provide a view of the cables and harnesses as defined in the schematic diagram. They comprise electrical and non-electrical components, including but not limited to connector placement, wire segments, protective coverings, clips, and labels.

Wire lengths are automatically determined, and a packing algorithm calculates the outside diameter of the harness segments. Rotate harness branches about any point to fit the paper size and reprint individual sections using the special print functionality. 

Highlight when the length displayed on the sheet does not correspond to the manufacturing length defined for each wire harness segment. These ‘out-of-scale’ segments can be automatically adjusted to show the correct manufacturing length assigned to the segments of the wiring harness.

Configurable connector tables can be placed in the drawing to display pin, wire, cable, signal, gauge, color, and target information. Add wires directly to the dynamic tables in the desired pin and connect to a pin in another table, and E3.formboard will automatically route the wire from pin to pin through the harness segments.

Streamline Wire Harness Production

Harness Builder for E3.series supports the custom wire and cable harness market. This E3.series integrated module is purpose-built for harness manufacturers. Harness manufacturers can create accurate quotations/estimates, full nail board/pegboard documentation, drive testing, digital assembly, and automated wire preparation machines.

Quickly document a complete harness from drawings or wire list. Manage datasheets and additional manufacturing instructions. Efficiently manage design variations with Dash number harness variables. Automatically drive pricing information, lead time, and assembly time calculations from design elements.

Comprehensive Intelligent Library​ Accurate Quotes and Bills of Materials​ Capture Wiring Details and Testing​ Improve Harness Documentation Quality​ Automate Harness Detailing​ Enhance Manufacturing Automation​ Collaborate with Mechanical Design​ Assembly and Manufacturing Instructions​

Comprehensive Intelligent Library​


  • Harness Builder for E3.series has a comprehensive set of component libraries containing thousands of components.
  • The library parts provide focused harness manufacturing details like loading views, cavity parts, mating connectors, and more.
  • The intelligent parts allow a layout builder to select and match wire sizing and optimize terminal selection.
  • The wire harness bundle diameter can drive the selection of labels, sleeves, and cable protection from the library.
  • Automatic creation of connector tables, manufacturing, and displayed wire lengths are enabled while applying logical stretching and compression routines.
  •  The configurable parts library connects engineering with upstream and downstream business units. 
  • A centralized design library helps standardize parts and design practices across users and teams.

Accurate Quotes and Bills of Materials​


Provide cost and time quotations:

  • Harness Builder for E3.series creates time and cost estimates for a harness driven by components such as connectors, terminals, wires, and cables. Quickly determine long lead times for parts using Harness Builder for E3.series Cost Estimator report.

Capture parts and accessories:

  • Automatically generate a complete BOM driven by the project data. Various types of details, both explicit and implicit, are captured to maintain an up-to-date count of parts inside the project. The BOM automatically tracks components, wires, cables, looming parts, labels, splices, and other miscellaneous parts.

Display on the Formboard drawing:

  • The BOM on a drawing sheet is formatted and configured per user requirements. The application automatically details the item’s numbers in balloons across the drawing and is in sync with the on-sheet BOM

Configurable user-defined report:

  • A user-defined excel template enables precise control over the format and content of the report for downstream consumption. The wires, cables, labels, and loom are quantified based on length to provide accurate results. The link between the BOM and wire reports helps to maintain precise wire length and termination details.

Detailed parts data:

  • Additional connector accessories are associated and easy to add to the BOM without searching for part numbers through OEM or supplier documentation. Selected elements hyperlink to PDF documents for information about sizing and terminal insertion.

Dash Number configuration:

  • The dash number function creates multiple reports driven by the configuration options for the wire harness, along with a summary of all options.

Capture Wiring Details and Testing​


Wiring reports:

  • Automatically generate a complete configuration Wire Run List (WRL) driven by the project data. Various types of details, both explicit and implicit, are captured to maintain an up-to-date count of parts inside the project. 

Display and share on Formboard:

  • The WRL on a drawing sheet is formatted and configured per user requirements. User-defined templates enable precise control over the format and content of the report for downstream consumption. The wire run lists track and update the wires, cables, seals, caps, and wire terminations. The link between the BOM and wire reports helps to maintain precise wire length and termination details. The combination of on-sheet and Excel reports bring versatility and robustness to the reporting process.

Accurate lengths to drive manufacturing:

  • The application captures insertion lengths at the connector and termination level and other additional length factors to improve the accuracy of wire length calculations across the wire harness. The wiring data accuracy enables wire processing and testing machines to improve quality, reduce effort, and implement design standards.

Automated wire harness testing:

  • Quickly drive automated harness testing machines directly from the design details. The export options for Cirris, DIT-MCO, DynalabsCamiResearchNexeya, CKT Technologies, and more provide an easy path to improved quality and time savings.

Key features:

  • Create on-sheet wire run lists with termination details
  • User-defined options for sequence and terminations of wires
  • Capture wiring details like insertion length at connector and pin level to calculate wire lengths accurately
  • Excel output to drive multiple downstream processes
  • Drive wire processing and testing machines to improve quality and reduce the effort

Improve Harness Documentation Quality​


Splice documentation for sonic welders:

  • Splicing is an integral part of the wiring harness and manufacture creation. Harness Builder for E3.series will provide direct output, including barcodes for the ultrasonic welders. Thoroughly detail the left and right side welds and select the correct size heat shrink for the fabricated weld.

Wire color details on connector views:

  • Documenting a harness assembly with the color of the wire connected to a pin is beneficial in increasing wiring efficiency. The wire harness’s loading and table views can display the wire colors on the terminals. Display additional details using configurable wire attributes to boost downstream processes.

IPC/WHMA-A-620 wire tolerancing standards:

  • The addition of wire harness tolerancing blocks on the formboard to follow the IPC/WHMA-A-620 standard is available. The standard adjusts the wire length to increase on a sliding scale based on the routed length.
  • The tolerance setting options can be in imperial units, metric units, or a percentage. These settings are read from the drawing and configurable for individual harnesses.

Formboard Copilot:

  • Formboard Copilot is a drafting tool to simplify creating a wiring harness on a size-constrained formboard.
  • The exact length of branches and trunks is always a challenge to manage perfectly the first time around wrapping a harness around a size-constrained formboard when the length is known in advance.

Zuken E3.series Harness Builder: Wiring V2

Automate Harness Detailing​


Cable protection and coverings:

  • The application automatically calculates bundle diameter for parts selection. The coverage and slack calculation is configurable for multiple applications. Automatically apply across the entire wire harness or selected segments. Reports capture part numbers and details for use in assembly and manufacturing processes.

Label placement:

  • The automatic label placement saves time and standardizes harness designs across projects effectively. The labels are for standard devices and connectors. The label placement option is highly configurable to handle the labels as independent parts or additional parts of the devices and connectors. Furthermore, automatically assign heat shrinks to device and connector terminations. The versatile solution provides complete auto-place options and an individual placement option.

Tape placement:

  • Tape or other accessories are placed automatically on the entire wiring harness or selected branches. The calculation for the bundle diameter is automatic, and an appropriate tape is selected. The tape placement is configurable with offset, centering, and other selection standards to match various process requirements.

What's New in Harness Builder 2022

Enhance Manufacturing Automation​


Harness Builder for E3.series is loaded with a list of direct import and export functions. The intelligent harness data digitally drives a variety of automated manufacturing and assembly platforms. Connecting with 3rd party platforms creates a harness manufacturing ecosystem to improve quality and efficiency.

Automatic wire processing machines:

  • Drive highly automated wire cutting and processing machines from vendors such as Schleuniger, Komax, and Argus using direct outputs from Harness Builder for E3.series.

Automatic labeling:

  • Automatically print labels using popular machines from Brady, Brother, and Hewlett-Packard. The output and user formats are easy to create and deploy. Several laser marking, labeling, and other printing options are readily available to drive manufacturing automation.

Augmented reality assembly solutions:

  • Manufacturing assembly aids like ‘HarnessWorks’ are driven directly from the harness assembly to enable smart manufacturing processes.

Collaborate with Mechanical Design​


E3.series offers a variety of solutions to improve the collaboration between MCAD and ECAD teams without redefining their respective roles. 

  • Intelligently verify and heal the most common 3D harness route segmentation issues without relying on the mechanical team.
  • The harness flattening functions simplify transitioning from a 3D harness export to a 2D formboard drawing. The connectivity between logical and physical architecture in E3.series improves data reliability with automatic updates across the entire project.

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Starting Design from Mechanical design

Assembly and Manufacturing Instructions​


Simplify the time-consuming process of creating work instructions using the engineering data in harness builder for E3.series. Create, release, and manage work instruction packages to define the building process for the cable assembly. Pre-built customizable work instruction templates ensure consistency across projects. Auto-actions trigger repeatable custom automation routines to assemble relevant assembly instructions. The combination of comprehensive reports and configurable reports improves quality and increases productivity.

Harness Builder 2023

What's New

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