The innovation initiative

The Wire Harness innovation initiative

What is the IILS?

The "InnovationsInitiativeLeitungsSatz" ( IILS for short) has been in existence since 19.07.2019. Companies from almost all stages of the value chain have joined forces in this initiative, from OEMs as wire harness developers and assemblers as wire harness manufacturers to machine and component manufacturers as well as research institutions and software suppliers.

Despite its importance, the production of the wire harness is sometimes decades behind the state of the art. The Wire Harness is one of the most complex products in today's automobiles and involves many manual production steps. Cost pressure and the large number of possible individual components and associated variations have made it impossible to think about automating the wire harness until now. This is precisely where IILS and its partners come in. Key points such as

• Economical and efficient production,
• Automation,
• Reduction in the variety of parts,
• Process optimization,
• Interdisciplinary communication,
• Greenfield approach and
• Pursuit and verification of abstract solution approaches

play a key role in the "reinvention" of the line set for the year 2036.

What are we doing?

The basic question posed by the IILS initiative is:

"How can, or how should, the Wire Harness be produced automatically in 2036?"

The wiring system is currently the heaviest single component in an automobile and, depending on the variant, consists of several thousand individual components. The partners are contributing their extensive expertise from the various stages of the value chain to develop the basis for automation, as the challenges require an interdisciplinary approach.

How do we work together?

The start of the sub-projects (SP) also marked the beginning of "Phase 1" of the IILS. The aim of this phase was to concretize the most urgent challenges facing the industry in the context of automating the wire harness and to lay the foundations for phase 2. In this subsequent phase, more in-depth work will be carried out with the overarching aim of creating standards that will result in a norm.

The results cover a broad spectrum with regard to the automation of the wiring harness. This shows that the automation of the wire harness can only be achieved through a holistic approach.