Zuken Enhances Wire Harness Manufacturing Process with the Release of Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series

WESTFORD, MA, USA, MAY 9, 2023 – Zuken’s popular wire harness manufacturing product, Harness Builder for E3.series, delivers a modern user interface and new functionality with its 2023 release. Harness Builder for E3.series enhances the wire harness manufacturing process by providing an innovative, end-to-end solution. With its advanced features, designers can streamline the quoting process, create complete formboard documentation, and automate the documentation and manufacturing processes. The software’s intelligent designs, parts database, and formboard drawings enable designers to quickly develop harnesses, while its outputs simplify testing and wire-processing. By leveraging these capabilities, manufacturers can boost efficiency, reduce costs, and stay ahead of the competition.

“When developing the 2023 release, we focused on addressing user feedback. We redesigned the GUI to make it even easier to navigate. Along the way, we added key functionality to speed up the design process with features like auto dimensioning of the harness and watermarks.”, comments Paul Harvell, Product Director of E3.series.

User interface redesign 

The user interface for Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series has gone through a complete graphical overhaul giving the tool a modern feel and making it easier to understand and use. An improved window configuration enhances productivity with an added structure to the window tabs, making navigating detailed sections such as reports, exports, analysis, and utility tools easier.

Another significant change to the user interface is grouping core settings in one location under the main Harness Builder window. Combining the settings in a shared space makes finding and keeping consistent report data more manageable. During installation, the new modularly-driven interface allows customers to choose the export options they require for the plug-in. End users will save time by finding only the lists of export machine options they want to see.

Wire segment dimensioning

Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series introduces several new features to automate wire harness design documentation. Designers can now populate segment dimensioning to an entire harness with a click of a button. The addition of the auto dimensioning toolbar is available as part of the standard product offering. It is simple to standardize the dimensioning by configuring the dimension settings for the project; a verification tool is available for the dimensions. If segments are missing dimensioning, the message window will display any warnings and highlight the affected branches.

Adding watermarks

Manufacturers can apply automatic watermarks for shareable harness drawings. Users can define controls such as the number of watermarks to add, rotation, placement, and other text properties. The watermark feature generates a PDF copy of the active sheet, including the watermark texts.

Splice documentation

The new release refreshes the method of adding documentation for splices. Quickly place the on-sheet splice documentation for multiple splices using the new splice context menu options. By selecting several splices and then running the command through the Harness Builder context menu, the tables will appear individually, ready to insert into the documentation.

Wire harness definition

Defining a harness is now easier with a new approach in Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series. The user can choose how to identify a wire harness based on attributes, a drawing sheet, the complete project, or bringing together an entire assembly through structure nodes. The reports and exports can then apply and use the wire harness name and version for release tracking.

Twisted pair handling

The 2023 release improves the handling of twisted wire length calculations for detailed reports. Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series now considers factors relating to the number of twists and material composition to ensure that length calculations are accurate, preventing short wires during wire cutting that can lead to rework and waste.

Cost and weight estimator

The addition of a harness braiding cost and weight estimator is available in the new release. It provides a precise estimate of the cost and weight of material for the braiding machines. Automatically calculating the braiding requirements is essential to create an accurate customer quotation.

nVent HOFFMAN PWA 6000 support

Harness Builder 2023 for E3.series continues to improve the design to manufacturing process for wiring harness manufacturers. We are expanding the connected manufacturing capabilities by adding a new export option to nVent PWA6000 for wire processing.

Harness Builder 2023 will be available for delivery in June 2023 in North America.