Brunswick Corporation
01.01.2006
Wire Harness Plant: Supporting Commercial Expansion of Business
As it has with its world-class casting business, Mercury Marine is now leveraging its expertise in the wiring harness business to grow a base of commercial customers in addition to its own needs. Located in Juarez, Mexico, the wire harness plant has manufactured parts for Mercury for nearly 30 years. The facility also produces wire harnesses for popular Brunswick boat brands such as, Sea Ray, Bayliner and Boston Whaler.
“Always a top performer, our wire harness engineering and manufacturing has evolved to world-class standards in recent years,” said Jeff Kinsey, Vice President - Focused Businesses at Mercury. “The combination of our design resources, precision manufacturing experience and high-quality performance has earned us a stellar reputation in the industry. We offer automotive-like quality capability, which we will now bring to all in the marine and recreational vehicle industries who desire it.”
The new unit, Mercury Wire Harnesses, specializes in low- to medium-volume, highly complex production, building parts that range from a handful of wires only a few inches long to intricate harnesses that are more than 50 feet in length. Kinsey points proudly to the plant’s quality rate, “that virtually any manufacturer would envy.” The plant commonly has a problems-per-million rate of less than 200, which puts the Juarez facility in the world-class Five Sigma category of quality.
Distinct from most harness vendors, Mercury Wire Harnesses uses virtually no hand tools. The experienced and engaged work force operates machines that cut, strip, splice and crimp the wire leads that go into every harness.
Like all Mercury Marine manufacturing facilities, the Juarez plant is ISO 9001:2000 certified, so all of its manufacturing processes are documented and audited, which helps ensure consistency between every part, every worker and every shift. It is this type of strict process control that is the foundation of the plant’s high-product-quality ratio.
To validate that its process controls are effective, Mercury Wire Harnesses prescribes relentless testing in all phases of assembly. Not only is every finished harness individually tested, most sub-assemblies are also electronically validated before they are added to a harness, which is unusual for the industry, Kinsey said.
“It’s important to note that wire harnesses aren’t just built in Mercury’s Juarez plant; they are engineered there as well,” Kinsey said. “On-site engineers use Pro/Engineer software to custom-design harness solutions that fit the application, space, routing and pricing parameters dictated by the customer. Having the engineering resources right in the factory also means that design changes can be made and implemented very quickly.”
In anticipation of increased commercial business, Mercury Wire Harnesses recently finished a 50,000 square-foot plant expansion.
