CAJO TECHNOLOGIES DESIGNED A DEDICATED SOLUTION FOR MARKING WIRE HARNESSES IN COLLABORATION WITH PKC GROUP
PKC Group is a global supplier of automotive electronics and one of the leading wire harness manufacturers in the world. PKC designs, manufactures and integrates customized wire harnesses, related architectural components, vehicle electronics, wires and cables, especially for commercial vehicles and agricultural and forestry machinery. PKC Group is part of the Samvardhana Motherson Group, one of the world’s 26 largest automotive companies worldwide.
PKC customizes wire harnesses for their customers, and the marking process of these customized wire harnesses was rather inefficient and costly. Two different methods had to be used for marking: CO2 laser and heat-shrink tubing. CO2 covered less than 10% of all the materials being used, and the rest had to be identified with heat-shrink tubing. The use of heat-shrink tubing causes a number of additional manual work phases, as they need to be cut to the correct size, marked with an ink jet, threaded around the wire and heated for shrinking. The manual multi-stage process increases the chances of error, causing unnecessary risks for electronics provided to the vehicle industry.
Cajo designed a dedicated solution for fast and cost-effective marking of wire harnesses. One fiber laser system is capable of marking the entire material range being used. The parameter set has been defined already for around 300 different wires, and this allows for quick implementation when new systems are required around the world in PKC production sites.
The dedicated interface for marking wire harnesses was designed in collaboration with PKC. Now, instead of looking for the right heat-shrink tubing, the operator reads the bar code from the cable bundle, and the dedicated user interface CajoMark retrieves the order information directly from PKC’s ERP system. The UI indicates with color code, which is the next wire to be marked. As a whole, the process minimizes the possibility of errors and, with ease of use, anyone is capable of using the system.
“We have recently developed dedicated marking solutions for various industries to better meet customer needs. For example, in the cable and wire harness industry, this means close cooperation with the world’s leading manufacturers, such as PKC Group and Prysmian Group. When PKC updated from two separate marking technologies into one Cajo fiber laser system, this decreased the amount of separate work phases, which allowed for payback time less than 8 months”, explained Cajo CEO, Niko Karsikas.
For more information contact Niko at [email protected]. Cajo Technologies, www.cajotechnologies.com
