How harness shops differ from other electronics shops
A harness is mostly manual work around a formboard: cut, strip, crimp, assemble, tape or sleeve, then test. Costs sit in labor, wire and connector variety, and in drawing revisions. A single product family may have many variants that differ by a few circuits, which makes configuration control and bill of materials structure central.
Quality is inspected against A-620 and the customer drawing, and most defects come from crimp quality, wrong cavity placement and revision errors rather than from machine faults.
Quoting and estimating harnesses
Quotes need circuit counts, wire lengths and gauges, terminal and seal types, connector and backshell parts, labeling, test requirements and tooling. Labor standards per operation vary a lot between simple and complex builds. Hard-to-source connectors and long lead times often decide feasibility more than price does.
- Estimate from the wire list and drawing, not from connector count alone
- Include tooling, applicators and test fixtures as separate lines
- Record revision and class on the quote and traveler
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Wire Harness RFQ Review Checklist
Check the drawing package, BOM, class, test, material, compliance and commercial points on a harness RFQ before you commit to a price.
ERP, harness design and data realities
Harness shops commonly use ERP systems such as Epicor Kinetic, Infor SyteLine/CloudSuite Industrial, Global Shop Solutions, JobBOSS, E2, NetSuite or Plex, and sometimes dedicated harness design or wire list tools. Wire length, cut lists, terminal part numbers and test programs often start in an engineering tool or spreadsheet and are re-keyed into the ERP.
That re-keying is where mismatches arise: a BOM that omits a seal, a revision that differs between the traveler and the drawing, or an alternate terminal used without approval. Fewer manual hand-offs is the most reliable fix.
Where private AI helps harness shops, and where it does not
Useful, bounded tasks include cross-checking a quote or BOM against a customer drawing, finding every job built with a given terminal lot after a crimp issue, searching procedures and past nonconformance reports, and answering questions over ERP data without building a report. Running models on-premises suits customers who restrict drawing and export-controlled data.
AI is not a substitute for crimp pull testing, continuity and hipot testing, or trained inspectors applying A-620. Write-back to the ERP should stay behind human approval.
Frequently asked questions
What does WHMA stand for?
WHMA stands for the Wire Harness Manufacturers Association. It serves companies that design and build wire harnesses and cable assemblies, and works with IPC on standards and training such as IPC/WHMA-A-620.
What is IPC/WHMA-A-620?
It is the Requirements and Acceptance for Cable and Wire Harness Assemblies standard. It describes acceptable workmanship for crimping, soldering, wire preparation, routing and related operations, by product class, and is commonly cited on harness drawings and contracts.
Do I need A-620 certification to build harnesses?
It is not a legal requirement, but many customers, especially in aerospace and defense, require trained and certified personnel and flow the standard down in their contracts. Check the purchase order and quality clauses for the specific requirement.
Why are harness BOMs hard to manage in ERP?
Harnesses have many variants, large numbers of low-cost parts and frequent revision changes. If wire lists and cut data live outside the ERP, mismatches creep in. A clear BOM structure and one source of truth for revisions reduces errors.