Share

Background

GVA (Generic Vehicle Architecture) is a design concept being adopted by the British Army on new/future vehicles. Within the GVA standard (DEF STAN 23-009) a number of common electrical and optical interfaces are defined.

These interfaces cover:

  • Power;
  • Ethernet (Copper and Fibre);
  • USB.

The standard clearly defines the connectors that are to be used and the pinout of each interface. This ensures a common interconnection design when connecting two or more GVA compliant units.

Creating The Amazon Prime™ For GVA Cable Harnesses

Many projects fall foul of leaving the interconnection design and purchasing of cable harnesses to the last minute. And military cable harnesses are not something you can leave until the last minute due to components not being readily available and having excessive lead times. The worst lead time we have come across is 42 weeks, imagine delaying your testing or delivery of a system by 42 weeks… That would be a very awkward conversation with your project manager and customer.

But NSTG Engineering is in the process of creating a GVA cable harness utopia by drastically reducing the lead time to produce GVA cable harnesses. We may not meet the quick delivery service that Jeff Bezos has created at Amazon with same or next day delivery, but we can reduce your wait for your important GVA cable harnesses.

Reducing The Time To Order And Manufacture

Producing a manufacture ready cable harness drawing from scratch is a time consuming process.

Firstly you need a skilled engineer with the right software tools to produce the drawings, these drawings then need to be reviewed and updated before being formally issued, which depending on your company processes can take weeks to complete.

Now it’s up to you supply chain to submit the drawing one or more manufacturers to produce a quotation for the work, which can also take a week or more to complete.

Now the manufacturing process can begin, this can take on average 26 to 32 weeks to complete for military cable harnesses.

With all that in mind, it can take up to 40 weeks from the engineer drafting the drawing to the cable being delivered, which is ok providing your project schedule already accounts for this time, if not then you’re in a spot of bother.

How Can NSTG Engineering Reduce The Lead Time?

NSTG Engineering is currently producing 140 GVA cable Harness drawings that cover all configurations possible, with regards to the harness construction including adaptor angles and multi-leg construction.

From the 140 base drawings, NSTG Engineering is able to offer more than a million variants that include clocking angles of connectors and lengths of multi-leg harnesses.

Having a vast catalogue of options available removes the need for producing the cable harness drawings internally and skips the process to purchasing phase.

NSTG Engineering utilises the vast experience and expertise of Tekdata Interconnections to manufacture all cable harnesses. By having all the drawings upfront we’re able to work with Tekdata to analyse the designs and ensure they’re optimised for lead times, as well as being able to get a base cost for each harness which will reduce the time to produce a quotation.

We have the aim of specifying parts that are readily available and can ensure that the manufacturing process will commence as soon as possible.

Overall by ordering GVA cable harnesses through NSTG Engineering will reduce the delivery lead time from 40 weeks to around 26 to 32 weeks.

We have a long term goal to reduce the lead time further to just 5 working days or less, by pre-building common cables harnesses and having them available as in-stock items. We may not be able to match Amazon Prime™, but we can definitely get close to that target.

What Cable Harness Types Are Available?

At present we have 140 harness types that consist of the following connection types:

  • Power straight through;
  • Ethernet single channel straight through;
  • Ethernet dual channel straight through;
  • Ethernet dual channel “Y” split cable to 2x single Ethernet connectors;
  • Ethernet dual channel with “Y” transition moulded part to 2x single Ethernet Connectors;
  • Fibre single channel straight through;
  • Fibre dual channel straight through;
  • Fibre dual channel “Y” split cable to 2x single Fibre connectors;
  • Fibre dual channel with “Y” transition moulded part to 2x single Fibre connectors;
  • USB straight through.

Each harness type also has the option to change the angle of the adaptor from straight to 45 or 90 degrees. There is also an option to supply the harness with ends unterminated.

How To Order

We’re currently in the process of generating the drawings and creating the product datasheet. The product datasheet will contain the information for all of the harness types and variants that are available to order, along with guidance on specifying part numbers. The product datasheet will be ready for distribution in October.

If you have an urgent need for GVA cables, please get in contact using the email noel@nstgengineering.uk and we will be happy to assist in the delivery of GVA cable harnesses to your project.

Register Interest

If you would like to find out more, please fill in the form below. We will also send you a copy of the datasheet once released.


Share