Internationale Partnersuche

Innovation & Technologie Angebot

Technical expertise offered in electrical connexions and related capabilities

Country of Origin: France
Reference Number: TOFR20191001001
Publication Date: 14 October 2019

Summary

The French SME designs and manufactures electrical connectors and terminals: wire-to-wire and wire-to-board housings, eyelets and cable lugs, busbars and other wiring accessories. It supplies the automotive industry. Now it wishes to develop its clients’ portofolio and offers its technology and know-how in precision stamping, plastic injection, overmolding & insertion, automated assembly in the transport & logistics, aerospace, ICT, and intelligent energy sectors via manufacturing agreements.

Description

The SME is located in the South-West of France and has 75 years of experience in manufacturing connectors for the automotive sector and other industries like railways. 

The company has capabilities in product development, manufacturing, quality and performance processes. With the support of its internal testing laboratory, it designs, develops, qualifies, validates and manufactures all products in the same place. 



The company owns a highly automated industrial machinery. It uses specialized equipments for plastic injection, metal precision stamping, assembly and tooling. Its automated processes enable the company to offer a good price alignment compared to low-cost countries suppliers. To ensure the devices’ reliability, the company’s laboratory tests the mechanical, dimensional, micro-cut, electrical, environmental and durability properties of the products. 



The company is able to design and produce connectors for a large spectrum of applications, engineered for reliability and global cost efficiency:

•	Wire-to-wire connector housing: original proprietary design or alternatives to other products, 2 to 10 cavities, compatibility with main terminal types from 0.64mm up to 9.5mm. It takes what the big connector makers leave away, designing the best fit for function connector. The existing connectors are unsealed but the SME will launch its first watertight connector in 2020.

•	Eyelet Terminals: wires ranging from 16mm² up to 70mm² for earth and power applications, open crimping barrels. 

•	Other contacts and terminals: receptacle and pin terminals for signal and power applications, adapted to connector housing range, electrical contacts for electrical motor and other electro-mechanical devices, lead-frames, busbars for power inverters and switches.

•	Electronic Control Units headers: specific header connectors for signal and power applications, with up to 20 pins, automated pin overmolding or insertion, for through-hole assembly on board (no press-fit design available). Signal pins are typically in the range 0.5mm up to 1.5mm. Power pins are in the range 2.8mm up to 9.5mm.

•	Watertight tubular terminals: under development for copper and aluminium wires, with start of production planned in 2020.



The company currently serves one main market related to automotive connectors and terminals. It wishes to develop its presence in other sectors and is looking for industrial partners interested in electrical connectors or its related capabilities (fine metal cutting and stamping, plastic injection, assemblies and overmolding).

The company is offering its technology via manufacturing agreements to partners in Europe and North Africa for a closer support, but it is open to partnerships all over the world. 

The SME wishes to design and manufacture innovative and specific solutions with its partners in a cost-oriented strategy. It first sources the client's expectations and requirements. Then the company’s project managers are involved from early stages until serial production ramp up to ensure a continuous monitoring of the client's project.



The company has a steady double-digit growth for the last 6 years. It has 90 highly skilled employees including R&D teams, projects managers, designers, technicians. In terms of equipment, it has a complete industrial infrastructure of more than 13 000m² covered surface including 5 industrial buildings, fully owned by the company. It posseses a fully equipped testing laboratory having machines checking the mechanical, electrical and environmental resilience of the devices.

Advantages and Innovations

The connectors and related capabilities have the following features :

- 	Optimized design for reliability and cost. The permanent design intention is to catch the complete picture of the desired functions and offer the best fit to the customer’s needs.

- 	Large variety of connectors. 



The company has the following advantages :

- 	Long-lasting experience in plastic injection, metal stamping and automotive connectors. The company has a complete coverage of automotive connection area, and a combine expertise in plastic injection and metal stamping. 

-	A perfect knowledge of electrical connections components failure modes during manufacturing, delivery, wire assembly on vehicles. 

- 	Provide short time to market product development, thanks to a complete infrastructure and teams on site, all in one place without intermediaries.

-	Certifications : ISO 9001, ISO 14001, IATF, ISO TS 16949. The company has regular process audits by its customers, including VDA 6.3. They usually exceed 95% compliance.

-	It can deliver mass volumes of pieces. The SME delivered in 2018 more than 250 billion parts worldwide.

-	It spends around 1 million € in new investment every year.

-	It validates around 25 new products each year.

Stage Of Development

Already on the market

Requested partner

Type of partners sought: industrial partners requesting electrical connectors and interfaces. It can be companies involved in the transport & logistics, aerospace, ICT, and intelligent energy sectors with need of small metal parts, serial delivery, quality control, design and development support. The partners should be technically competent with strong local presence and an existing networks of customers.



Role of partners sought: to collaborate with the SME in the development of new products and the serial production with a long-term manufacturing agreement.  The future partners will have to provide specifications, plans, and all necessary documents of industrial parts under confidential agreements. The French company is used to start with a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to open the information funnel.