SIDNEY, NY—Aerospace supplier Amphenol will receive a $3.8 million federal disaster grant to build a new assembly plant on higher ground here. The factory sustained $35 million in damage from flooding from Tropical Storms Irene and Lee in 2011.

Despite recent inroads by aluminum, copper will remain the dominant material used in automotive wiring harness applications over the next few decades. That’s because harness weight can easily be reduced by using finer wires wherever electrically feasible.

It has become fashionable lately for some U.S. companies to tout how they’ve reshored production from overseas. Baldor Electric Co. isn’t one of them—it never left. The company has been manufacturing electric motors, drives, bearings and other motion control products in the United States for decades.

Wire and cable insulation is typically made from thermoplastics, thermosets or fibrous coatings such as fiberglass and fiber-braiding. Unfortunately for manufacturers, inks and coatings do not print or bond well to most of these materials when using standard techniques.

A fully automatic stripping and crimping system might be the “glamour” technology of wire harness assembly shops. However, there’s still plenty of work for handheld electric, pneumatic and manually powered crimping tools.

Unfortunately, like many OEMs, Northwest Regulator Supply was struggling by the start of the 21st century.

A new technology from TE Connectivity could change how power and data are transferred in robots, conveyors and other manufacturing equipment.

Lots of tool makers say their products are ergonomic. Few of them actually prove it.

New equipment addresses changeover and repeatability issues.

BANNOCKBURN, IL—Significant technical updates, greater ease-of-use and compatibility with other key assembly standards are among the many changes engineers will find in the newly released B revision of IPC/WHMA-A-620, Requirements and Acceptance for Cable and Wire Harness Assemblies.