# What is Wire Harnessing? A deep dive into the world of wire harnessing—breaking down the key terms, people, and industries involved in wire harness design. ![A deep dive into the world of wire harnessing.](/sites/default/filesd10/styles/webp/public/2025-01/wireharnessing-banner.jpg.webp) ## What is a Wire Harness? A **wire harness** connects all the elements of an electrical system, including the cables, wires, and parts that connect the electrical components of the product or system to distribute electrical power. Planning out your wire harnessing is imperative. A well-designed wire harness ensures that your systems assemble easily, thus eliminating wasted materials and saving time and money. Wire harness assemblies are found across use cases with varying complexity depending on the industry or product category in which they’re applied. Any product that contains an electrical system likely uses wire harnesses. These products could be something as small as a mini fridge, or something as large as an industrial machine. Regardless of the application, **wire harness design helps eliminate friction throughout the design process and helps ensure a safer and more efficient system**. ### Can You Design Wire Harnesses in Both 2D and 3D? Yes! **Wire harnesses can be designed using both 2D and 3D design software**. Schematic tools, like - [SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic](https://www.solidworks.com/product/solidworks-electrical-schematic), can be used as a first step for your logical wire harness design, helping you map out each connector and wire relationship clearly. A simple 2D layout sketch can help put you and your team on the same page when trying to understand and think through the overall connectivity of the system’s components. 2D wire harness design is the traditional method of laying out harnesses; however, it requires various manual methods and physical prototypes to determine wire lengths and branching locations. Today’s 3D design capabilities offer greater accuracy and flexibility in visualization and design, while reducing physical prototyping. After creating your initial logical harness layout in 2D, **using a 3D design tool opens the door to a range of exclusive benefits**. With a 3D CAD modeling tool, you can take your schematic and translate it into 3D, plan the harness path, and then visualize how your wire harness will actually fit into a product. Being able to virtualize these steps is key to reducing the number of costly prototypes needed, and also reveals areas to improve the assembly and serviceability of your design, with benefits including optimizing the use of wire or cable–something which is not easily visible in a 2D model alone. ## Wondering How Wire Harnessing Bridges both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering? Check out this eBook that details how the electrical and mechanical design processes are interconnected before diving into some real-world examples. ![Wondering How Wire Harnessing Bridges both Mechanical and Electrical Engineering?](/sites/default/filesd10/styles/webp/public/2025-01/PRODUCTS-ELECTRICAL-3D-mechatrobics-routing-harnesses-hero-001.jpg.webp) - [Read the eBook](/media/7-building-blocks-effective-mcad-ecad-collaboration) ## The Design Process - From Design to Manufacturing No product is created in a silo. Each project requires collaboration between a range of teams. Let’s take a look at the steps you may take to bring a wire harness from design to manufacturing. 1. **Schematic Design** Ensure all teams are aligned at the start of your project by generating 2D schematic designs to provide a system-level overview of all components, individual wires, and harnesses. 2. **3D Design and Visualization** Plan accurate 3D routing paths, add necessary accessories, and determine wire lengths before making a single physical prototype, saving time, money, and resources. 3. **Documentation** Generate product and manufacturing documentation, including wire and cable assemblies, form board drawing, bill of materials (BOM), and reports to then send all the necessary files to the production and manufacturing team. 4. **Manufacturing** Begin the production and wire harness manufacturing process, which includes building form board tooling and programming wire cutting machines, all powered by the clear documentation created during the design phase of the project. Interested? Check out the SOLIDWORKS Electrical wire harness design tools - [View Products](/domain/solidworks-electrical) ### ## Who is Involved in Wire Harnessing? Let’s explore some of the key players who create wire harness designs. ![Wiring Harness Design Engineer / Systems Integrator](/sites/default/filesd10/inline-images/wiring-harness-designer.png) #### Wiring Harness Design Engineer / Systems Integrator Wiring harness design engineers and systems integrators are responsible for the design, management, and creation of wire and cable harnesses according to details specifications across a range of products and systems. This includes tasks such as component selection, voltage architecture, and the development of electrical schematics and related documentation to manage complex wiring. Usually, these wire harness engineering roles either fall under an organization’s electromechanical or electrical team. Wiring harness design engineers and systems integrators serve a key role in facilitating the collaboration between electrical and mechanical teams as designing a strong wire harness requires a complete understanding of both the electrical and mechanical components of a design. Additionally, wiring harness design engineers are often required to create and understand both 2D and 3D designs/models. ![](/sites/default/filesd10/inline-images/wiring-harness-engineer.png) #### Electrical Engineer Electrical engineers may also share many of the same responsibilities as a wiring harness design engineer. Depending upon the size of your company, an electrical engineer may be responsible for a range of tasks, including wire harness design. An electrical engineer working on wire harnessing would carry out many of the same tasks as a wiring harness design engineer including everything from system design to voltage management to component selection and documentation. Regardless of title, wire harness design is an integral step in the overall electromechanical design and engineering processes. A skilled wire harness design can save time and money, and ultimately help ensure a safer and more efficient system. ## Where is Wire Harnessing Used? Almost every industry utilizes electrical components and equipment typically requiring electrical harnesses. Below are just some of these industries employing such electrical systems. Are you a student? Check out these other learning materials - [View](/product/students) ### ## Our Solutions for Wire Harnessing SOLIDWORKS offers a range of wire harness design tools in its SOLIDWORKS Electrical portfolio. Let’s take a look. ### SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic is a multipurpose schematic tool giving you access to high powered schematic design capabilities. Whether for use in electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, or PFD/P&ID applications, SOLIDWORKS Electrical Schematic will streamline your design workflow, helping you generate reports in seconds and automatically update documentation as you design. This tool is a great first step in any wire harness design, allowing for clear, easy-to-read schematic drawings of your wiring systems. - [Learn more](/product/solidworks-electrical-schematic) ### SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D SOLIDWORKS Electrical 3D acts as the glue between your 2D schematics and your 3D product designs. This solution allows you to integrate seamlessly between the 2D and 3D spaces. Your 2D schematics will be synchronized with your 3D designs ensuring that a change in one place is automatically reflected everywhere thus eliminating human error and time wasted on mundane file updates. This tool is also what makes the 3D visualization of your wire harness designs possible. - [Learn more](/product/solidworks-electrical-3d) ## Let’s Dive Deeper Wire harness design has wide reaching applications spanning industries, use cases, and job titles. Below, we’ve collected some of our favorite resources that dive deeper into wire harness design and its related applications to help you learn more. # Questions about Wire Harness Design? We can help. Get in touch with our solution experts here. ![Wire Harnessing Footer Banner](/sites/default/filesd10/styles/webp/public/2025-01/wireharnessing_footer_banner.png.webp) - [Contact Sales](/how-to-buy/contact-sales) - [Call +1 (781) 810-5011](tel:1-781-810-5011)