The continuously integration of electrics and electronics (EE) in the last decades is one of the main key drivers for innovation and business success of the Automotive OEMs. This is also applicable for truck manufacturers. On the other side factors like the rising vehicle complexity, number of variants and the warranty costs for EE issues are increasing the pressure on the engineering teams responsible for the mechatronic systems.
To address these issues one of the key activities in the European market (focus on Germany) during the last decade was to introduce industry-wide standards for the data transfer of wiring harness data between OEM and harness supplier. In this paper the benefits and technical background of using the standards KBL and KOMP formats within the MB-Trucks brand will be presented. Moreover the role of the Information Technology (IT) will be explained in detail.
For practical commercial vehicle application examples, some requirements like the impact of commercial vehicle huge variation (see Fig.1) are shown. The influence of different IT strategies on worldwide data availability, electrical component supplier integration and global reuse of electrical component or design results between business units are explained as well as expectations on the future development of the wiring harness data standards. During 2011 the next generation of data standard format VEC (Vehicle Electric Container) will be presented in the European market and the related benefits will also be analyzed.