• Wire Wisdom
• A Primer on Small Wire Crimping
• Summer in the Rear View Mirror
• Do You Own or Do You Labor?
• The Power Women of the Wire Harness Industry
• Connect the Shop Floor to the Top Floor for Wire Harness Companies
• Air Force Research Labs Paves the Way to Lower Cost on Wire Harness Assembly
September
October
2017
No Harness Too Complex
for SemahTronix
By Joe Tito
Wiring Harness News
_____________________________
S
ince 1977, the company that
is now SemahTronix has
been producing high com-
plexity harnesses and subassemblies
in Flippin, AR. Originally specializing
in Military applications, the company
builds assemblies to exacting stan-
dards in Medical, Security & Defense,
Communications, Industrial and Spe-
cialized Industries. They are certified
to ISO 9001 and AS9100 C.
WHN had a recent conversation
with Alex Stubenfoll, Director of
Marketing and Sales and Travis At-
kinson, Vice President of Business
Development – Engineer, about the
company’s history and unique abili-
ties. Alex began noting the company
was formed in 1977 in Flippin as a
division of LaBarge Electronics. At the
time, she revealed, there were some
complimentary industrial incentives,
and a high-quality workforce was
available at favorable rates. The com-
pany was acquired by Avnet, Inc. in
1995 and became Avnet Cable Tech-
nologies (ACT). Then in 2000, a group
of private investors purchased ACT
and changed the name to Actronix.
In 2006, the company began a
partnership with the Arkansas De-
partment of Corrections under the
Prison Industry Enhancement (PIE)
program that allows the company to
employ offenders who have volun-
teered to be a part of the initiative,
Alex described. Through this part-
nership, Actronix opened a second
facility in Newport, Arkansas on the
grounds of the McPherson Women’s
Unit.
In April of this year, as Alex cited,
the company came under the new
ownership of Rusty Hames, and be-
came SemahTronix. Rusty is an entre-
preneur with a plethora of success
stories across many industries.
Travis talked about the develop-
A Primer on Small Wire Crimping
By Matt Houser
Manager, R&D Development
Engineering TE Connectivity,
Application Tooling
______________________________
Introduction
rends toward miniaturiza-
tion and electronification,
especially in the automo-
tive industry, are driving increased
demand for small wire terminations.
TE Connectivity (TE) defines small
wires as anything that has a wire
cross sectional area of 0.35 mm 2 (22
AWG) and smaller. This article will
focus on open-barrel F-crimps. Ap-
T
proximately 45% of wires in a typical
mid-size car are 0.35 mm2 or smaller,
and that percentage is expected to
increase to 72% in the near future.
Harness makers must be prepared to
crimp higher volumes of small wires
to keep up with these trends (See Fig
1 page 22).
Small wire terminations present
unique quality challenges due to
their sizes. This article will describe
some of these challenges, list com-
mon ways to inspect for quality, and
outline how to overcome the chal-
lenges of small wire terminations.
_____________ Continued on page 22
Complex wire assembly on the board at SemahTronix.
ment of the company over the years, standards. “All of our engineering de-
saying, “Traditionally our business is velopment and test capabilities are
in harness and subassembly manu- done in-house with no external de-
facture for medical and military & pendencies,” he noted, “so not only
aerospace markets.” He noted their does that make us resourceful, we
expertise has always been in low- are also fast to deliver small volumes
volume, high-complexity assemblies
that hold high quality and reliability _____________ Continued on page 18
Employing Disabled Workers: A
Discussion with the Experts at
Chinook Enterprises
By Joe Tito
Wiring Harness News
_____________________________
E
arlier this year, I intercepted
an email from Steve Pilip-
chuck, Vice President and
General Manager at Wallace Elec-
tronics, on the WHMA Yahoo group
listserv (if you’re not on it, ask the
folks at WHMA if you can be a part
of it). Steve asked, “Does anyone have
experience working with Disadvan-
taged Workforce Programs?” Steve
had some basic kitting operations he
thought would be a great fit for such
an organization, but he didn’t know
where to start. I followed up with
Steve. He got some input from the
group, but hit some brick walls.
I dug into this as a research project
for Wiring Harness News. Towards
the end of this article, I outline some
specific resources you might use to
find such organizations. Should you
wish to consider bringing disabled
workers onboard (and I hope you
do), there is also plenty of useful in-
formation in that regard. But first, I
wanted to introduce you to a won-
derful gem of an operation I discov-
ered along the way.
Chinook Enterprises
Chinook is a social enterprise,
meaning they are a non-profit de-
signed to operate as a business, but
with a very specific social mission.
Chinook’s goal is to support full par-
ticipation in community life for peo-
ple with disabilities. They feel strong-
ly that full participation begins with
successful employment.
There are many different facets to
Chinook Enterprises. They work to
find employment for disabled work-
_____________ Continued on page 14