EuroWire November 2022

Corporate News

Trends in the wiring harness sector High demand for electric cars is making wiring harnesses more important and sys tem-critical. This is creating opportunities, but also challenges, for manufacturers. systems to manufacturing execution systems (MES) in order to supply them efficiently with orders and provide quality data transparently.

across and throughout all of these steps, fromengineering through installation and ideally to the use of the wiring harness in the vehicle. In the ARENA2036 research campus, an innovation platform for the mobility and production of the future, vehicle manufacturers, wire harness producers, machine manufacturers, software firms and other companies have joined forces to advance the development of consistent digital twins. “Electromobility is promising wiring har ness manufacturers a bright future,” ex plained Bernd Jost, managing director of DiIT. “But to participate they must do their homework. Without further automation, standardisation and digitalisation, the sector will not be able tomeet the increas ing requirements which go hand in hand with this change in importance of their products.” Examples of the company’s corporate responsibility include its contribution to social projects like Lebenshilfe Traunstein. It also partners VESO Arbeitsintegration with its Swiss branch in Winterthur, helping people temporarily unable to work to re-join the regular labour market. 2021 sawWolfram Industrie complete two major projects. The first involved boosting production capacity at the Bayerische Metallwerke headquarters in Dachau by 50 per cent. The second was at Wolfram Industrie’s headquarters in Traunstein, where work on a long-planned new building got underway. The new 7,000m 2 head office, which will house 6,500m 2 of production space, is expected to go into operation at the start of 2023. “Investing around €20mn is key to us having the space and logistical scope we need to optimise the flow of materials and ramp up progress on new manufactur ing technologies,” commented Sebastian von Cetto, Wolfram Industrie managing partner and production manager at the Dachau facility. “Streamlining the decision making within our companies and install ing the latest ventilation system are just two ways our employees will benefit.” Gesellschaft fürWolfram IndustriembH Bayerische Metallwerke GmbH www.wolfram-industrie.de DiIT GmbH www.diit.de

Interface standardisation is gaining mo mentum. As manufacturers of wire pro cessing machines continue to define their own interface specifications, the integra tion of machines into an MES system can incur considerable expense. With increas ing automation, this situation is not sus tainable over the long term. At the end of 2021, a VDMA working group was formed to develop a sector standard on the basis of the OPC/UA industry standard. Many wiring harness manufacturers are already working with digital twins, which can be deployed in most steps of the engineering and manufacturing process. However, there has been a lack of consistency. Each step uses its own digital twin that operates independently of others. To enable consistent traceability and quality assurance, the information model of a wiring harness must be usable “Thanks to Wolfram Industrie acquiring Bayerische Metallwerke in 1991, we not only kept our then competitor in business as a going concern, but also expanded our own portfolio, which opened up new prospects for both companies,” said managing partner Marion Freifrau von Cetto. With regional supply chains, stable production of tungsten electrodes in Germany could be ensured, independent of the East Asian market, allowing the company to weather the ongoing pandemic crisis. Whenever possible, Wolfram Industrie sources conflict-free raw materials from Europe.

DiIT, a specialist in integrated software systems used in wiring harness production, explained three trends that wiring harness manufacturers need to look out for: a reliance on high voltage wires for automation; interface standardisation; and paving the way for consistent digital twins. The breakthrough of e-mobility has led to an increasing requirement for high-voltage wires. Wiring harness manufacturers are looking for ways to automate the processing of these complex multiple-core wires with additional shields. Relevant systems with several interlinked processing stations are generating interest. In addition to throughput, automated quality control – for example with vision systems – has an important role to play in these systems. It must also be possible to connect the

Double anniversary Gesellschaft für Wolfram Industrie mbH took over Bayerische Metallwerke GmbH 30 years ago. Today, the companies are celebrating their 110 th and 95 th anniversaries, and upgrading their capacity by expanding and developing at both locations in Bavaria, Germany.

A combined total of 205 years of accumulated insights paves the way for industries such as semiconductors to exploit high-quality tungsten and molybdenum products. Streamlining production and leveraging the latest manufacturing technology helps the group continue delivering innovative solutions for its customers.

In Traunstein, construction of the new company headquarters got the green light

Photo credit: Gesellschaft für Wolfram Industrie

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November 2022

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