Ford standardises harness design tools

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Oct 23, 2006

Ford Motor Company is to standardise worldwide on Mentor Graphics CHS flow for the design of vehicle electrical systems.

Ford Motor Company is to standardise worldwide on Mentor Graphics CHS flow for the design of vehicle electrical systems.

The intent is that CHS will be used by the entire Ford group including the Jaguar, Land Rover, Mazda and Volvo brands.

Ford Motor Company will deploy CHS's powerful electrical system design and integration software, and also the CHS harness engineering and costing tools.

This full CHS flow provides Ford with significantly enhanced engineering productivity by automating time consuming tasks.

More importantly, CHS's generative design flow promotes component and system re-use, thus consolidating purchasing volumes, and provides a rules-driven correct-by-construction paradigm that eliminates wiring integration errors.

Using unique wiring synthesis technologies, CHS automates construction of all wiring interconnects taking into account the multiple options and variants that derive from the marketing configuration complexity of modern automobiles.

Because Ford will also adopt Mentor's harness engineering and costing tools, data can be readily flowed throughout the design process, including to the tier 1 harness supplier base.

This not only encourages a design-for-manufacture outlook but also supports robust design change processes.

Fundamental to CHS is the philosophy that design data management is key to solving the problem of electrical design complexity.

Much of this complexity derives from the huge configuration challenge noted above, a problem faced by Ford and indeed all automotive OEMs.

CHS is a data-centric toolset, with each software application built around a common object model contained within the Capital Manager application.

By capturing and acting on the complex configuration relationships during the electrical design flow, CHS allows this complexity to be properly managed.

"By adopting CHS, Ford Motor Company is taking a very strong position in the deployment of these modern technologies".

"The electrical system is a high impact aspect of a modern automobile".

"By standardising on CHS, Ford will achieve cost, reliability and time to market advantages in terms of part number control, design error reduction and architectural optimisation", said Martin O'Brien, General Manager of Mentor's Integrated Electrical Systems Division.