Design Smart, Connected Products: ECAD-MCAD Collaboration for Better Harness Design

How to thrive as an engineer in an electromechanical world.

Engineers are being asked to work outside their normal domain with mechanical engineers often dealing with electrical requirements, and vice-versa. Electrical systems are strongly interlinked with physical design, so changes in the electrical system often require changes in mechanical packaging. Adding data-driven software to the design process can help both the mechanical and electrical engineer. Collaboration between the domains results in quicker time to market and a product free of expensive quality issues. Automated processes found in next-generation design software provide cross-probing and cross-visualization between electrical and mechanical environments. That collaborative environment enables those working in the design process to understand electrical system signal routing, without requiring the mechanical designer to deal with issues such as electromagnetic and radio interference.

Among the topics:

• Associativity between MCAD and ECAD applications is a key enabler for collaboration between mechanical and electrical engineers for harness design and analysis.
• Harnesses are the nervous system of smart, connected products. They connect sensors, embedded systems, antennas, and actuated components so they work as a single whole.
• It takes more than a simple handoff from the electrical engineer to the mechanical engineer to design a harness. There are constraints and requirements that must be checked along the way. Problems must be resolved collaboratively and interactively between the pair of engineers.