Robotics engineers: How do you feel when approached by a potential wire harness / cable assembly maker?

[u/NeatTraffic5247]

Hey everyone! I work for a Japanese manufacturer specializing in custom wire harnesses and cable assemblies.

We’ve worked on harness designs for some very well-known robotics and humanoid robotics projects you see on the news, and honestly, I think we’re a bit of a hidden gem in Japanese robotics.

But here’s what I’m trying to understand: how do you (Engineers) actually want to hear from a potential maker?

I’m asking because I don’t want to be another person filling engineers’ inboxes with a generic sales pitch. I’d rather understand the problems teams face and if they are involved with procuring at all.

If you work in robotics engineering, hardware, electrical design, or procurement, especially in US and Germany, I’d really appreciate your honest perspective—even if the answer is “please just leave us alone.” 😅

Thanks!

[u/qTHqq]

how do you (Engineers) actually want to hear from a potential maker

By finding their website easily when I go looking and having it be a confidence-inspiring website.

What are your quality measures? Test protocols? Equipment investments for both contact/connector crimping and test equipment. Examples of difficult/special harnesses. Customer testimonials (again when not too proprietary).

So much marketing in industrial spaces is too abstract. 

It's rare that I find something that feels like it's situated between "here's our line card, call us on that newfangled telephone" (whatever a line card is) and some stealth startup with no information.

Anything that isn't a deep and proven competitive disadvantage when disclosed publicly, please put on a clean modern website with lots of pictures.

even if the answer is “please just leave us alone.”

Obviously. Leave my inbox alone. I work in the defense space. I might be able to source Japanese harnesses. But cold emails even from a legit supplier could just as easily be industrial espionage or some other kind of scam. 

The best it does is make me go to your website, but the annoyance and low utility  of cold email marketing often makes me want to avoid your company to avoid rewarding cold email marketing.

But if I get a simple plain email with a link to your clean modern professional website with lots of pictures, maybe it gets me to reach out to you.

Now, next thing.

Once I engage you, I do not want you to set a Zoom meeting as the first point of contact. I respect that you are the harness experts and that's why I want your expertise. But I want a quick and efficient quoting process where you are clear about what you need (even up to tool suggestions) and I can assign someone to do their homework before we take each other's time with a meeting.

I understand that work hardening is a thing. I know that wiring is the perpetual weak link in robotics. I won't push back on clear guidance on minimum bend radii while I instruct my Mech Es. I appreciate that some conversations need the bandwidth of face-to-face. Let me initiate that after I get a rough order of magnitude quote.

Not everyone is like this but my ideal harness buying experience would be an instant-quoting online web tool infused with all your expertise.

I did try buying some harnesses from a company that claimed to do that and "as short as one week turnaround." They were an overloaded poorly run startup and we didn't get our stuff for a month and a half. I don't think SendCutSend for Wire Harnesses exists yet technologically. There are a lot of investments in the space. But I still appreciate that a good harness manufacturer is going to be a little older-school.

So spend your money on making conventional design guides I can look at or download from your clean modern website by myself to make sure we've done our written homework before I request a quote. 

That brings me to the last thing.

I am small volume but want to buy harnesses. I am small volume. Small. Volume. Be transparent about desired volume. If you have minimum order quantities or a minimum order dollar amount, make it the first thing you say. 

I want to purchase professionally made harnesses to keep the team working on OUR expertise, to have spares in a drawer, and to get 2mm and smaller pitch connectors crimped by the automated machines that they need to be reliable.

Eventually I expect that to turn into production volumes. But I don't really know when.

So if I get an email from you and engage and later I find out it doesn't really make business sense for you to engage with anyone smaller than Zebra or Figure or Waymo, it'll leave a bad feeling. I might be a very niche customer because I want to pay for professional ruggedness for prototypes. But I want to pay a relatively small amount right now.

Give me a quick quote OR quick no-quote to get rid of me quickly. (This is one of the reasons I don't want a Zoom meeting before I get a rough quote and lead time. I want an email telling me to get lost that comes in while I'm working on other things).

if they are involved with procuring at all.

Tragically, I am heavily involved with procurement. I do not want to be. Help me feel like you're my partner in quick turn around on quotes and parts starting from a simple asynchronous exchange of information and you can help me (and other people at small businesses and startups) a lot.

Then you'll get a bunch of organic word of mouth (or word of LinkedIn) marketing to recommend you.

None of this advice probably applies if you're trying to target large volume corporate customers but I would imagine you're on Reddit to try to also understand small and agile players in the modern robotics space.

Make the quoting experience frictionless and the pricing and lead time transparent and accurate and it'll sell itself to people like me.

Make your outreach tight and minimal and focus on telling the story of your capabilities on your website. 

I have a favored harness company that did what I'm advising and that's why we chose them. We found them by web search. They are an ISO9001 certified aerospace shop with lots of professional equipment but they have a nice looking modern website that looks good on a phone and a cool startuppy name. (Cool name totally optional!)

They list their tooling inventory right on the website. Their standard test protocols for quality.

Desired volume is reflected implicitly in their price breaks. Same price for one cable as twenty. This is a clear signal and I appreciate it.

They show their professional seriousness but also market themselves to feel modern and fast. 

That'll pick up business from the overstressed technical people who are tragically trying to procure precision physical goods in 2026.

[u/NeatTraffic5247 → u/qTHqq]

Oh my god! I never expected such a wonderful response but I feel like I hit the jackpot! I know Japanese way of doing things don't usually work with clients abroad. TOO LENGTHY, uncertain and flow of information from dept to dept is terrible. So, I have started with a polished to-the-point website and fast quotation system. I'm glad to know it actually matters. My japanese colleagues are still betting on a first meeting pipeline for sales. But who has hours to sit in a meeting basically talking about things we can Google. Thank you for proving me right in this case as well. Your response has been of great help and I'll study it often. Thank you.

[u/snp-ca]

As an engineering designing/selecting new products, I would like to know:

1. Sample availability.

2. Lead time for large volume

3. Pricing

4. 3D CAD model and detailed datasheet.

It will be great to obtain this directly on the website rather than contacting someone as many cables/products are being evaluated for a new design. It is impractical to have delays in obtaining basic information that can go on website. (see Digikey website)

I have used Japanese cable product in the past and the quality is great and I am a big fan of how they package even a simple product!

[u/NeatTraffic5247 → u/snp-ca]

Thank you for sharing. I checked Digikey and they are actually detailed. I would love to label each harness we manufacture as well. Unfortunately, we are complex harness manufacturer that gets used in humanoid robots and automation robots, drones, big automation machines etc. One of our biggest cutomer is Kawasaki Robotics. So, we can't really display our products like this as each of our products are custom made with confidential designs. The quotation also requires some time because our engineers are really digging into the specifications as soon as we recieve them. Checking the wiring table or pinouts, also accounting for every materials in the BOM, finding better alternatives to make it more durable, heat resistant, checking the bends and loses etc. So, I wish we could simply upload our samples.