-
-
News
News Highlights
- Books
Featured Books
- smt007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueWhat's Your Sweet Spot?
Are you in a niche that’s growing or shrinking? Is it time to reassess and refocus? We spotlight companies thriving by redefining or reinforcing their niche. What are their insights?
Moving Forward With Confidence
In this issue, we focus on sales and quoting, workforce training, new IPC leadership in the U.S. and Canada, the effects of tariffs, CFX standards, and much more—all designed to provide perspective as you move through the cloud bank of today's shifting economic market.
Intelligent Test and Inspection
Are you ready to explore the cutting-edge advancements shaping the electronics manufacturing industry? The May 2025 issue of SMT007 Magazine is packed with insights, innovations, and expert perspectives that you won’t want to miss.
- Articles
- Columns
- Links
- Media kit
||| MENU - smt007 Magazine
The Benefits of a Vertically Integrated Approach to EMS
March 9, 2016 | Adrian Nishimoto, Spectrum Assembly Inc.Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Many electronics manufacturing services providers are expert at board-level and box build assembly. However, most do only limited cable and harness assembly in-house.
The benefits of providing cable and harness assembly services in-house to customers are three-fold. First, the business focus on cable assembly ensures that volumes are present for both cost competitive material prices and a level of automation that keeps labor costs competitive. For example, on a medical device with both printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) and cables, an EMS firm that has the capability to provide cable and harness assembly will be able to reduce the cost on the product’s cables by leveraging their cable buying power.
Second, doing the work in-house does more than eliminate a layer of supply chain markup; it also decreases lead-time while improving the ability to respond to customer schedule changes.
Finally, expertise in cable assembly adds value when product designs have cable manufacturability issues. The ability to provide expertise in cable assembly can add significant value because cables are often thought of as a less challenging part of product design. Typically, companies put a great deal of focus on design of the PCBAs and the overall unit itself, but the design team may not be expert at cable design.
Some common cable design related issues include:
- Wrong terminal or contact for specified wire gauge: If the contact is too large, the crimp will be too loose and will fall off. Conversely, if it is too small the crimp will be too tight and may damage the wire strand immediately or completely destroy it over time. In some cases, the terminal specification is correct, but an incorrect wire gauge or tolerance is specified.
- Male connector housing with female terminal: While this mistake is easily fixable, it can generate significant non-value activity if not caught in documentation.
- Incompatible materials on header and cable: For example, specifying a gold-plated header on the PCB connector, but using tin on the cable terminal, can create resistance issues immediately and corrosion longer term.
- Cable documentation shows pinout but doesn’t identify connector: If the pinout only shows a single view and the connector isn't identified, in the best case it slows down the new product introduction process and in the worst case it can result in an incorrect connector being used.
- Incomplete or missing wire list: This is a frequent mistake with two-wire connections. It can cause quality issues.
- Proper crimp tool not specified: The tools used to crimp wire are specifically sized for the cable. Failure to specify the correct tool size or specification of an incorrect tool can create quality issues. IPC-A-620 includes a requirement for specification of crimp height and tool test.
- Insufficient electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding or placement issue: Insufficient EMI shielding or placement of sensitive cables near a power supply can create intermittent product failures.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the March 2016 issue of SMT Magazine.
Suggested Items
Flex CEO Sees US Manufacturing Resurgence
06/18/2025 | I-Connect007In a June 16 interview on Bloomberg Open Interest, Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi said the supply chain is already shifting, with more goods now being manufactured in the U.S.
Altus Supports Phoenix Systems in Advancing THT Assembly with Robotic Soldering
05/27/2025 | Altus GroupAltus Group, a leading distributor of capital equipment in the UK and Ireland, has successfully supported Phoenix Systems UK Ltd in its investment in robotic soldering technology to further enhance its through-hole technology (THT) assembly processes.
Vertical Aerospace Makes Aviation History with Piloted eVTOL Flight in Open Airspace
05/27/2025 | BUSINESS WIREVertical Aerospace, a global aerospace and technology company that is pioneering electric aviation, announced it has made European aviation history with the first-ever piloted wingborne flight of a winged electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in open airspace.
Harnessing Connections: EWPTE 2025 Draws Nearly 3,000 Attendees
05/19/2025 | IPCThe 2025 Electrical Wire Processing Technology Expo (EWPTE), held May 6-8 at Baird Center in Milwaukee, Wis., provided 2,994 attendees the opportunity to meet, network and learn from the industry leading innovators and suppliers.
AI Helps Build Smarter, More Resilient Power Grids
05/16/2025 | BUSINESS WIREAs society’s reliance on electricity deepens, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we manage power grids and optimize energy sources.