Lean One-Piece Flow & Discrete Wire Label Verification

Do you build a large quantity of the same cable? Or small quantities of different cables? Depending on your process, you may be using batch processing or one-piece flow.

Batch Processing

If you are using batch processing, you set up your wire processing equipment to assemble a large quantity of each different wire in the harness. These “batches” of wires are then brought to the harness assembly area. This system works if you’re building many harnesses that are all the same.

One-Piece Flow

What if you deal in small quantities? One-piece flow may be the answer. Unlike the typical “batch” process for building harnesses, one-piece flow allows you to build small quantities efficiently and profitably, even if you are only building one harness.

With one-piece flow, you process all wires for a single harness at once. Labels are applied to each wire so that you have a complete “kit” of what you need to build a single harness.

Discrete Wire Label Verification

When building harnesses that have individually labeled discrete wires, you must also make sure that the harness is electrically correct and that the labels are accurate. This is especially critical when building single-ended harnesses that get second-end terminated in the field. This type of harness building process requires the person assembling the harness to correctly identify each wire and install it in the proper location.

Cirris offers a new feature in our Easy-Wire software called “Wire ID” that helps eliminate the human error factor by ensuring that the labels match the wire location. This feature gives the person assembling the wire the tools they need to quickly identify which wire they are holding and where that wire should go. In addition, the software offers the ability to have pictures and written instructions appear on the tester screen when a specific wire is identified (for routing instructions or special handling details, etc.).

Some of the advantages of using the discrete wire label verification approach in your assembly process are:

• Eliminates wire selection errors by the operator.
• Dramatically improves assembly time.
• Facilitates a one-piece flow assembly.
• Testing is part of the assembly process, not a separate step.

Adding Labels to Your Wire List

The Easy-Wire software lets you add labels to each wire instruction. Simply learn a standard wire list with your CR tester. Go to tab #4 “Define Instructions” and right-click on the instruction line you want to add the label to. The 2nd software screenshot to the left shows the window that will open.

You have 32 characters for your label. In this window, you can also select the color of the wire you are now dealing with. You can also set different connection resistance levels for each wire.

The labels will appear on the test screen. You can see that the label is listed as well as what the connection resistance parameter is for the instruction. In addition, the wire color is displayed on the right.