Quote a harness as material (BOM × your prices + scrap) + labour (each operation counted from the harness × your time for it × your hourly rate) + setup divided over the batch + one-off NRE + margin. With our default table — estimates, not standards — a simple 10-wire sealed harness comes to about 19 minutes of labour each in a batch of 50.
What goes into a harness quote
| Part | What it is | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Material | Wire by the metre, terminals, seals, cavity plugs, housings, coverings, labels | The BOM × your price list, plus a scrap allowance; parts the customer supplies cost nothing |
| Labour per harness | Cut and strip, crimp, fit seals, insert, splice, lay on the board, tape, tie, label, test, inspect | The count of each operation in this harness × your seconds for it, plus a personal, fatigue and delay allowance |
| Setup per batch | Job setup, applicator changes, machine programs, label printing, first-article check | Seconds per batch, divided by the quantity of the break |
| NRE, once | Building the formboard, writing the test program | Quoted on its own line for a new part number or revision |
| Margin | Your overhead and profit | A percentage on cost, per quantity break if you wish |
Step by step
- Check the request is complete. Drawing with revision, connection list, BOM with manufacturer part numbers, quantities, delivery dates. See the RFQ checklist: missing information, not arithmetic, is what usually delays a quote.
- Build the BOM from the harness. Wire length per type and colour comes from the cut lengths, coverings from the branch lengths, and every terminal, seal and plug from the cavities.
- Count the operations. One cut per wire (one per jacketed cable), one crimp per terminated end, one seal per sealed end, one insertion per contact, one splice per splice, covering per 100 mm, one test per circuit.
- Time them with your own table. If you have no measured times yet, start from a published default and replace it as you measure (labour times guide).
- Spread setup over each quantity break. Setup that takes 30 minutes adds 180 s to each of 10 harnesses but 7 s to each of 250.
- Put NRE on its own line. The formboard and the test program are paid once; hiding them in the unit price makes the 250-piece price look too high and the repeat order too low.
- Apply margin and send. State what the quote assumes: revision, quantities, which parts the customer supplies, validity.
Worked example from the default table
A 10-wire harness between two sealed 10-way connectors: 20 crimped ends with seals, 6 spot tapes, 1 m of spiral tape, 10 labels, an automatic continuity test. Bench cut-and-strip machine, bench crimp press, seals by hand. Times are the Zorowire defaults, almost all of them our estimates.
| Operation | Count | Seconds each | Seconds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cut and strip on a bench machine | 10 | 4 | 40 |
| Crimp on a bench press | 20 | 6 | 120 |
| Fit a single-wire seal by hand | 20 | 8 | 160 |
| Insert a terminal | 20 | 7 | 140 |
| Handle a connector | 2 | 10 | 20 |
| Lay a wire on the board | 10 | 7 | 70 |
| Place a connector on the board | 2 | 7 | 14 |
| Set up and remove the harness on the board | 1 | 90 | 90 |
| Spot tape | 6 | 6 | 36 |
| Spiral tape, per 100 mm | 10 | 4 | 40 |
| Label | 10 | 10 | 100 |
| Automatic continuity test, per circuit | 10 | 3 | 30 |
| Visual inspection | 1 | 120 | 120 |
| Subtotal | 980 | ||
| + 15 % personal, fatigue and delay allowance | 1,127 | ||
| + setup per batch of 50 (job 900 s, two applicator changes 600 s, label printing 300 s) ÷ 50 | 36 | ||
| Labour per harness | ≈ 1,163 s ≈ 19 min |
The default table's own sanity check lands at about 20 minutes for this kind of harness, and one harness maker's blog gives 15–20 minutes for a simple 10-wire automotive harness — weak evidence on both sides. At a loaded rate of, say, €30 an hour, 19 minutes is about €9.70 of labour per harness. Your rate and your times are what make it right.
Quantity breaks
| Quantity | Setup per harness (1,800 s ÷ quantity) |
|---|---|
| 10 | 180 s |
| 50 | 36 s |
| 250 | 7.2 s |
How Zorowire does it
Zorowire counts every operation from the harness you entered, prices it with your labour table and price list, spreads setup over each break, keeps NRE separate and applies your margin. Until you replace the defaults, the quote lists every default time still in use, and every part without a price is a finding — never a hidden zero. The customer quote PDF carries your shop's name, and your logo from the Shop plan.
Questions
How long does it take to build a simple wire harness?
It depends on your shop. Our default table, built mostly from estimates, gives about 19 minutes for a 10-wire harness with two sealed connectors in a batch of 50; replace it with your own measured times.
Should NRE be in the unit price?
Usually not. Formboard building and test programming are one-off costs; quote them on their own line so repeat orders and large breaks are priced fairly.
What margin do harness shops use?
We have no reliable published figure. One HP Academy tutor described a rule of thumb of parts plus 40 % and labour at three times the wage (2021); treat that as one person's practice, not a benchmark.
Can I quote in RON, PLN or another currency?
Yes. A Zorowire quote can be in any ISO currency; exchange rates are your own input, never fetched into a printed quote.
Sources
- Zorowire default labour table: 55 operations, 52 of them labelled estimates — Zorowire test or research, 2026-10-30
- Abonyi & Ruppert, 'Monitoring Activity During Wire Harness Assembly', ASSEMBLY, 2020-01-14 (expert estimates) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Hooha Wire & Cable, 'How long does wire harness assembly take' (marketing blog, weak evidence) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- electronics.org, 'Missing information slows wire harness quotes, WHMA survey finds' (2026-10-27; n = 23) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- HP Academy forum, 'Pricing up harness' (2021) · retrieved 2026-10-30
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