Industrial and Commercial Transportation (ICT) manufacturers face countless design requirements to meet the most rugged of performance demands, as well as new challenges brought on by ever-changing market trends and evolving market needs.
TE Connectivity’s heat shrink tubing solutions are designed to help ICT manufacturers meet a wide range of needs and conditions. Operating in harsh environmental conditions requires proven product quality and durability.
TE’s products provide rugged reliability, saftey, and the ability to withstand extreme vibrations and mechanical shock. Through deep engineering capabilities and a commitment to testing, specific design requirements and certifications are achieved with reliability and dependability. With three major manufacturing sites to cover key regions globally, TE offers strong global sales services for heat shrink tubing solutions, including great channel partner support.
ICT applications often require manufacturers to design robust and resilient vehicles that meet the performance demands of harsh and rugged environments — whether tractor-trailers climbing steep hills or farm equipment toiling hard land.
This is further compounded by the need to operate in harsh conditions such as heavy rain, snow and extreme temperature change on a daily, if not 24/7 basis.
Designing ICT machinery to handle these performance demands requires equally rugged and reliable component parts. But that’s not all. Major market needs around safety, connectivity and efficiency are also impacting manufacturing specifications in the ICT space.
The focus on data and connectivity, including the next generation of GPS technologies, is increasingly being used to enhance functionalities and enable preventive maintenance to help improve safety and efficiency. Data and connectivity are also among the driving forces behind automation and the introduction of autonomous trucks. This greater use of data and connectivity in ICT designs creates more complexities and in turn, the need for more component parts.
An increased focus on environmental standards has also impacted ICT manufacturing. Regulations over emissions standards, e.g. China 6 and Euro 6, have intensified the interest in hybrid vehicles, impacting everything from transmissions to fuel systems. There is also pressure to improve heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to enhance air quality and thermal comfort for truckers. Looking into the future, current research and development (R&D) teams are focused on solid-state batteries which are expected to usher in fully electric trucks and large-scale transport. Collectively, these issues are serving to redefine ICT manufacturing requirements and the components needed.
Common Denominators
Looking together at these various performance demands, as well as current and emerging market trends, there remains fundamental common denominators that cut across the ICT manufacturing landscape:
Design engineers must address the sealing, vibration and temperature challenges associated with manufacturing all types of ICT vehicles. This means choosing protective products that can work within increasingly complex designs, as well as withstand the harsh environments inherent to ICT vehicle operation.
Increasingly, it also means ICT manu- facturers must choose a component provider that not only understands current and future market demands but offers a breadth of products that address a range of needs and are backed by decades of superior performance and reliability.
Heat shrink tubing is a solution to support these performance challenges—TE Connectivity is the choice provider.
Heat shrink tubing has proven to be the optimal solution for insulating components against heat and electric current, providing strain relief for connectors and splices, and protecting and sealing against water ingress, chemicals and abrasions. Versatile in solving design challenges efficiently, heat shrink tubing has also shown to outperform tape, glue and glass alternatives, particularly when it comes to impact resistance and operating in harsh environments.
TE Connectivity is a leading provider of heat shrink tubing, offering a wide portfolio of products to address an array of ICT manufacturing related needs. This leadership is based on TE’s Raychem brand of tubing, which has been a market force for more than 50 years. Following the design of select products for the US military and aerospace industry— efforts which exact the highest and most rigorous of engineering protocols—this became the standard by which TE tubing products are developed.
