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Issued on April 5, 2012
Sumitomo Wiring Systems, Ltd.

Developed next-generation harness design system "HARBEST" and commenced production runs

Sumitomo Wiring Systems, Ltd. (SWS) (Head office: Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture, President: Fumikiyo Uchioke) has completed the first phase of development of "HARBEST*", the next-generation harness design system that is to be used at our design bases throughout the world, and commenced production runs.

SWS's harness design system serves as the manufacturing backbone system that covers a series of operations from design of the manufacturing drawing to cost calculation and management, creation of estimate, mass-production and operation instructions, based on the development drawings submitted from the customer. The system is used at 25 bases in Japan and 36 bases in 16 overseas countries in the SWS Group.
Full-scale operation of the current system commenced in the late 1990s. The business operations of SWS has since then become globalized, and it has been required to shorten the lead time to mass production and improve the design quality to meet a diverse range of customers' needs. In anticipation of future global development, it has also been required to restructure the harness design system so that it can be used flexibly throughout the world.

In light of this, we have promoted development of the new design system since the end of 2010 to further strengthen the system by consigning the system development to Sumitomo Electric Information Systems Co., Ltd., Nihon Unisys, Ltd., and SCreate Co., Ltd. The first phase of the development for operations related to design of the manufacturing drawing has been completed. After conducting test runs for a month and a half, we have now launched production runs.

The main features of the "HARBEST" include the following: Multiple people can concurrently implement design of the manufacturing drawing for the same product. An enhanced automatic manufacturing drawing check function greatly reduces manual check work. The navigation function has been enhanced and operability is improved. With these functions, we expect a great reduction in the lead time from the point the customer's development drawing is received, to creation of the manufacturing drawing, significant improvement of design quality, reduction in design personnel training periods, easy global development, global standardization of design work (worldwide uniform design), etc.
We also intend to centrally allocate the manufacturing design personnel in Japan to other strategic departments in the future to reduce design costs.

We will continue the second phase of the development for operations related to mass production and the final phase of the development for operations related to cost management and sales, aiming at full-scale implementation of the new system in 2014.

(*) Official name: Harness Best Engineering System ("HARBEST" for short)