Faster Prototyping

Designing the Future

By: Staff Report

     When Gilbarco, Inc. a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation, set out to retool its lead product five years ago, its primary motivations were customer convenience and manufacturing efficiency. But it turned out that the new design created a platform for faster product development—giving Gilbarco, Inc. and edge over less nimble companies.

      The Advantage Series fuel dispenser from Gilbarco became one of the leading fuel dispensers in the world. But it had been built with a traditional point-to-point wiring harness — a legacy from the days when gas pumps were about as electrically complex as toasters. Like other manufacturers, Gilbarco had added more bells and whistles to its pumps over the years. The end result: a snarl of wiring packed inside the pump, making any assembly expensive and servicing difficult.

      So Gilbarco abandoned the point-to-point harness in favor of a modular design.

The new design was built around a central backbone of ribbon cables, with insulation displacement (IDC) connectors arranged along the cable to deliver power and signal to the various components.

      The design used Tyco Electronics’ MTA (mass termination assembly) family of connectors and headers, employing both 0.100-and 1.156-centerline components. The MTS system is designed to allow termination of multiple wires to a connector in one process. The broad line of products in this line made it possible to integrate all of the components with ...

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