Assembly line automation
The wiring problem automotive manufacturers can't ignore
As electrification reshapes what happens on the factory floor, Linquan Technology's Boming Zhu argues carmakers must rethink harness design, data flow and tooling long before assembly lines can be meaningfully automated.
Every vehicle rolling off a modern assembly line depends on a component that has stubbornly resisted the automation wave sweeping through the rest of the factory. The wire harness, often dismissed as little more than the vehicle's 'electrical plumbing', is in fact its very nervous system, and as that nervous system grows more complex under the pressure of electrification and software-defined architectures, and the industry's ability to manufacture it at scale is being tested as never before.
Few understand this tension better than Boming Zhu, General Manager, Overseas, at Shenzhen Linquan Technology. Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Shenzhen with production bases in Shanghai, Linquan builds intelligent processing machinery for automotive low-voltage, high-voltage and high-speed data wire harnesses. Its "Loong" series splicing platforms, paired with proprietary manufacturing execution systems, form the backbone of an Industry 4.0 automation offering now sold to a global automotive clientele. Ahead of the Automotive Wire Harness & EDS Conference Detroit 2026, Zhu offers important insights about where the industry stands, and where it urgently needs to go.
The concept of the smart wire harness factory has not yet been widely realised across the industry. There is still a significant gap between where the industry needs to be and where it is today
Labour and complexity, a converging squeeze
Asked to name the single largest challenge facing the wire harness and EDS industry in North America over the next five years, Zhu points to a pincer movement of forces rather than one issue in isolation. "Labour cost and availability, combined with the increasing complexity of EV and software-defined vehicle architectures, will continue to push the industry towards higher levels of production automation," he says. Yet, he warns, the supply side of that equation has not kept pace.
"Wire harness design for automation has not yet fully caught up with these expectations, and the concept of the smart wire harness factory has not yet been widely realised across the industry. There is still a significant gap between where the industry needs to be and where it is today."
That gap, in Zhu's telling, is not a temporary lag that time alone will close. It is structural, rooted in the mismatch between where vehicle architecture is heading and how harnesses are still being designed and built.
A widening gap in next generation architectures
Zonal and centralised electrical and electronic architectures are reshaping what a wire harness needs to do. Rather than snaking a dense web of point-to-point connections across the length of a vehicle, next-generation designs demand both flexibility and reconfigurability - with far faster changeovers between variants. The analogue to this can be seen in how automotive manufacturers have been increasingly adapting their production lines to quickly switch between combustion and electrical variants on the very same lines in reaction to market demands, namely, in flexible production.
Wire is a flexible object rather than a rigid component, and routing is fundamentally a topology problem rather than simply an XYZ motion problem
But for wire harnessing, the manufacturing ecosystem, Zhu argues, has yet to catch up. "Next-generation zonal and centralised E/E architectures are driving the need for more flexible, reconfigurable harness designs and faster changeovers," he explains. "However, today's development and manufacturing ecosystem is still largely based on legacy architectures and high-volume, low-mix production models. These models, he says, "continue to be highly competitive in today's price-sensitive market, creating a significant challenge in transitioning to more flexible and automation-oriented manufacturing systems."
For our readers, this is a familiar industrial dilemma. The economics that make today's high-volume harness lines profitable are precisely the economics that discourage investment in the flexible systems tomorrow's architectures will require.
Humans over machines: the stubborn problem of the flexible wire
If there is one process that captures why wire harness automation has proven so difficult, it may just be the handling of the wiring itself. Branching and routing, Zhu says, remain "among the hardest processes to automate reliably", and the reason is fundamentally geometric rather than mechanical. "Wire is a flexible object rather than a rigid component, and routing is fundamentally a topology problem rather than simply an XYZ motion problem," he says.
Human hands solve this instinctively, correcting, sorting and untangling as they go, a form of continuous sensing and adaptation that machines still struggle to replicate. "Human operators can continuously sense and correct errors, while also sorting, separating, straightening and untangling wires as they work. Current robotic and vision systems still struggle to consistently match this level of flexibility and adaptability."
Redesigning the harness, not just the machine
For Zhu, the more consequential lever is not necessarily more sophisticated equipment but a rethink of the harness itself. "Design-for-automation principles would have a greater impact than simply investing in more sophisticated equipment," he says. Among the changes he cites are "standardised connector families, reduced variant complexity, consistent branch and routing geometries, and harness designs that are more tolerant of robotic handling and positioning variations."
It is a call that places as much responsibility on engineering teams as on equipment suppliers, and one that echoes a broader theme across manufacturing automation - that the biggest gains often come from designing components to be made, not simply building smarter machines to make existing designs.
Closing the loop between engineering and the machine
Realising that vision depends on data moving cleanly from design intent through to the factory floor. Zhu is clear that geometric data alone, wire lists and routing information, is not enough.
"The information flowing from engineering should go beyond geometric data such as wire lists and routing information. It should also include the broader manufacturing intent, so that engineering data can be directly integrated with the automation process, machine capabilities and manufacturing data collection requirements." The weak link, he says, tends to appear at the translation point.
The key is to develop a flexible manufacturing system that is modular, scalable and capable of adapting to both product and process changes
"Data quality often breaks down when engineering information needs to be translated into machine-specific processes and parameters. Machine calibration is also critical to maintaining data accuracy and process consistency, particularly for preventive maintenance and when introducing new variants or products into the production system."
Making automation pay in high mix production
None of this matters commercially unless automation can remain economically viable when engineering changes are frequent and production runs are short. Zhu's answer centres on a manufacturing system built for adaptability rather than raw throughput. "The key is to develop a flexible manufacturing system that is modular, scalable and capable of adapting to both product and process changes," he says. Each element plays a distinct role.
"Modular tooling increases machine adaptability when introducing new products, while quick changeovers reduce downtime between variants. Machine vision allows the system to compensate for physical variations, while process monitoring can actively detect deviations before they become quality issues. Together, these capabilities can make automation more economically viable in high-mix production environments."
Looking to Detroit
With the Automotive Wire Harness & EDS Conference Detroit 2026 approaching, Zhu's focus is on listening as much as presenting. "I want to better understand where the industry believes the next major bottlenecks will be, particularly from the OEM and Tier 1 perspectives," he says. "Ultimately, I hope to leave the conference with a clearer understanding of how machine builders can help bridge the gap between harness design and automated manufacturing."
It is a fitting ambition for an industry at an inflection point. The wire harness has long sat at the margins of the automation conversation, overshadowed by the robots welding bodies and painting panels elsewhere in the plant. As vehicle architectures grow more software-defined and electrically complex, that margin is fast becoming the centre.
