„Concentrated innovative strength“

Harting: High reproduction accuracy in the production of connectors

In acquiring two new BIMERIC BM 1500 servo production and assembly systems, the Harting Group is continuing its close partnership with Bihler, a partnership which now goes back several decades. Harting is the global market leader for industrial plug connectors and these fully-networked Bihler systems guarantee the all-important product quality, are absolutely reliable in operation and ensure high reproduction accuracy – all coupled with continuous real-time monitoring.

The very first products manufactured by the company “Wilhelm Harting Mechanische Werkstätten”, which was founded in 1945 by Wilhelm und Marie Harting, included hotplates, electric fencing equipment and flat irons. However, the youthful company soon developed the Han® plug connector, which was later to become the acknowledged global standard. Nowadays, the family-run HARTING Technology Group is the global market leader for industrial plug connections – and it continues to pursue clearly-defined aims just as in the past. The top priority is placed on product quality. And so, today, Dietmar and Philip Harting, the son and grandson of the company’s founder, still live by the oft-quoted motto “Quality is when the customer comes back, not the product”. “Our products also stand out for their speed and ease of use, their robust design and their versatility and long service life”, adds Dr. Andreas Imhoff, Managing Director Operations at HARTING.

Continuous improvement

“To make sure it always meets its demanding quality requirements, HARTING chose at an early stage to work with high-performance partners such as Bihler. Consequently, the first Bihler systems arrived in the company in the 1970s, and the oldest machines still running today are two mechanical Mach-1 systems dating from the 80s. They are currently producing plug contacts at the rate of 120 parts per minute, and Bihler will shortly be improving this throughput to 350 strokes per minute. Mathias Bihler knows every detail of these two systems: “As a young toolmaker, I used to mount tools on these machines,” he recalls. “Even back then, HARTING demonstrated its enormous innovative strength on these machines and this is still characteristic of the company today.”

Low-level integration

The two new BIMERIC BM 1500 servo production and assembly systems are a further sign of HARTING’s outstanding desire to innovate. “The systems are perfectly integrated in our production environment and we use practically all the available machine data for real-time process monitoring,” explains Imhoff. “For example, we are able to measure the production-related energy consumption of every component and use this information to optimize our resource management.” The two Bihler systems are used to manufacture the locking pawls for the HARTING Han D® contacts. These make sure that the contact elements engage securely in the contact chamber. More specifically, the contacts and pawls manufactured on the systems are later crimped by the customer and pressed into the chamber. The challenges lie in the high precision of the pawls as well as in the various coating variants.

Stability is crucial

“The BIMERIC completely meets the high requirements in terms of quality and reproduction accuracy and the entire process is extremely stable,” explains Imhoff. “That is crucial for us and it also guarantees that our Han D® contacts always work.” The success of the two new Bihler systems has already persuaded HARTING to definitively plan the acquisition of another BIMERIC. “It’s good to see that our long-standing partnership is continuing today and we are looking forward to working together again in the future,” says the Chairman of the HARTING Board of Directors, Philip Harting, the son of Dietmar Harting.