Automation in wire harness production: Approval of the DIN 72036

It took a good four years for the efforts of Komax and Schleuniger, as well as other cooperation partners within the ARENA2036, to result in the creation of the first German industry standard for the automation of wire harness production. With the number DIN 72036, the new industry standard was published in June 2024.

“With these design guidelines, we have provided concrete instructions for the designers of relevant spaces in the vehicle at the car manufacturers (OEM) and for the wiring system developers at our customers”, explains Martin Stier, Director Business Development & Strategy of Business Unit Wire Processing within the Komax Group. “If the design guidelines and recommendations are followed by the OEM and the Tier 1 suppliers when designing a new wiring system project, this has a positive impact on the continuous, interoperable automation and helps to reduce complexity”, Stier continues.

How it all started
To drive forward automation in the development, production, and installation of wire harnesses, ARENA2036 – a registered association with members from industry and science, and a research campus for mobility and production of the future based in Stuttgart – set up a research initiative between 20 cooperation partners. The goal of this initiative supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research was and remains to establish the standardization of processes in development and production, of components and of quality inspections in a pre-competitive cooperation with participants across the entire value chain. This facilitates consistent automation of wiring system production.

Beat Wicki, Christian Infanger, Martin Stier, and other colleagues from the Komax Group are among the group of experts who have been involved in creating the industry standard over the years. All parties involved laid the foundation for the standard with their dedicated work. Once the innovation initiative had undergone a meticulous and lengthy evaluation by the Federal Cartel Office with subsequent positive outcome, it was transformed into today’s “Standardization Initiative Wiring Harness (SILS)”.

The resulting standard in the issue 2024-06 now contains around 60 design guidelines describing rules and recommendations for selecting and designing sequences, processes and designs of wire harnesses and their components.

Expansion of the standard
The current SILS includes 16 consortium partners, including leading German car manufacturers, international Tier 1 suppliers, and peers from the wire processing industry. It is now entering its second stage: The preparation of the English version of the 2024-06 issue is well underway and the expansion of the standard to include HV (high-voltage applications) and HF (high-frequency applications) is already planned for 2025. The collected design guidelines should also be increasingly capable of being evaluated digitally so that a degree of automation of the wiring system, respectively the scope of parts can be determined at the start of the project.

Right from the start, Komax and Schleuniger made relevant contributions here for the creation of the design guidelines in the various subprojects (TP). From meshing reduction of wire harness parts in “TP1” and concrete component specifications in “TP2”, which mostly originate from the design guideline of the Komax Group on automated block loading, to the space required for the grippers of fully automatic twisting machines. The subprojects are each made up of consortium partners with experts from different specialist areas and interest groups in wire harness development and production. Together, they create the design guidelines as a camera-ready proposal, which are then submitted to the public work group respectively working committee NA 052-00-32 AA under the attention of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) or DIN, where it is approved following comments of additions. And this is how the next issue of the standard is created from the cartel-law compliant cooperation between leading companies in the automotive sector along the value chain and the public approval of an expert committee. As a market and technology leader for automated solutions in wire processing, it is a pleasure for the Komax Group to be involved in this.