In my line of work, I visit many wiring harness shops that produce harnesses for many different industries. One of the common issues I’ve noticed in shops that use crimp force monitors (CFMs) is that they are usually turned off, regardless of the brand, because engineers and operators aren’t using them properly.

Although I hope this doesn’t apply to your shop, it may be worth paying an unexpected visit to your crimping work areas to see if the CFMs are being used regularly. Chances are they aren’t. Unless of course it’s audit time: Then you can be sure all the CFMs will be on.

Why, given all their benefits, are CFMs not being used regularly? One of the biggest problems is the lack of understanding about what affects a CFM’s ability to detect variations. Crimp-quality detection is similar to baking a cake. There are a lot of ingredients, and if one is missing or of poor quality, it’s unlikely you will achieve your desired result. So here’s a description of a basic crimp-quality detection system followed by a summary of the variables you should consider before switching off that CFM.

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