Motivation for automated cable production in the region

For international passenger and freight transport ESG criteria as well as higher personal safety and travel comfort are gaining in importance worldwide. This means on one hand that all railway lines have to be electrified in the near future and diesel-powered rail vehicles have to be converted to low-emission drives. On the other hand, safety and comfort functions demand maximum quality in wire harness manufacturing and, for the warranty case, manufacturing processes that are traceable.

To convert and connect Diesel trains more cables have to be produced, often with tight delivery deadlines. In view of the global shortage of skilled workers, the increasing demand for cable harnesses means further capacity bottlenecks and greater susceptibility to errors due to manual production.

Thus, cable assemblers need new concepts helping them to increase their productivity simultaneously ensuring high-quality products. These concepts have also to apply to the cable harness production to network trains in terms of higher travel safety and comfort. Automated production solves all these challenges at once simplifying on top to re-locate production back to the region.

Rail vehicles are regarded as trendsetters for automated and autonomous driving. Many cities are already using autonomous trains successfully for regional passenger transportation. New intelligent systems for train safety and automation are a top priority here. They are influencing the control cabinet design, as well as the architecture of the cable harnesses.

The focus on improving customer experience is another goal influencing the architecture of the cable harnesses. The focus is turning more and more to sophisticated services, such as automatic ticketing or onboarding systems to simplify last-minute booking, identification checks, as well as seat reservations. Train delivery services and infotainment systems will improve the travel experience even further. Video surveillance helps to detect theft or to optimize passenger load.

These new services require new mechatronic devices. Sensor-, data-, signal- and power cables are gaining significantly in importance, along with their automated assembly.

The control cabinet building for trains can be fully digitized based on the circuit diagrams. Cable sets are prepared and provided in the correct order for the wiring. If the circuit diagram is lacking any cable information, the Komax Digital Lean Wiring (DLW) software provides all information needed for the wire assembly. Combined with digital documentation, the wiring work required can be reduced by up to 80%. Stable, lean and transparent processes ensure top quality.

In light of the continuous vibrations in trains, stone impact or extreme weather conditions, the connection technology as well as the quality and reliability of the materials used must be perfectly adapted to the extreme conditions of the application areas.

The production of cable harnesses can be automated and scaled along the entire value chain, even with High Mix Low Volume (HMLV) production. Modular platforms for automated production make it possible to combine the required production clusters into a precisely tailored machine layout. Interconnected and linked to other systems, the individual production steps, e.g. for cutting cables to length, processing the cable ends, ultrasonic welding or crimping, form a consistent "best in class" production process.

Automated wire harness production also stands for significantly higher productivity with a considerable reduction in material waste. Networked machines produce top quality straight away thanks to optimized machine parameters. Additionally, in-line harness testing ensures "Quality at the first go" reduces rework and therefore unit costs.

Several options help to achieve this goal:

• The operator influence can be reduced during quality-sensitive cable assembly process steps.
• To guarantee reliable function, customized systems for the automated quality check are available for all kinds of rail vehicles including their subunits like cable ducts and cable frameworks as well as for signal technology.

These measures supplement the visual and tactile quality checks of the end product. They are integrated into the production process exactly where quality assurance is required. The test values and analysis results are recorded for traceability purposes.

Regardless of which KPIs are important to a cable assembly company - the capacity utilization of a machine, its performance, error statistics or the quality produced - the production platform can be integrated fully in the production environment to determine the parameters for the perfect production process. In future, these values will be optimized automatically using machine learning based on test values.