Connector Interface
Innovation Story
Connector Interface
Automotive industry
VW
worldwide
Challenge
The gap in the system
1997: Cable protection in the Golf IV engine compartment was not complete – a connector between the corrugated tube and the plug was missing.
At that time, the Golf IV was the first private car with a corrugated tube cable protection system in the engine compartment. Schlemmer had banned tape from this area and replaced it with corrugated tubes. The first manifolds were also used at that time. However, exposed cables could be seen at the transitions between the cable protection corrugated tubes and the plugs.
Ferdinand Piëch, then CEO of VW, criticised this at the Frankfurt IAA in 1997.
Solution
The last piece of the puzzle
Schlemmer’s spontaneity and inventiveness heralded the birth of adapter caps.
An attentive Schlemmer employee seized on the remark made by Ferdinand Piëch, spontaneously sketched a solution for the problem on a piece of paper and immediately got the design process going.
Only one week later, the last missing piece of the puzzle in the cable protection system was presented to VW. We were kicking in open doors with our solution.
Result
Revolution in cable protection
Up to today, no manufacturer apart from the Schlemmer Group can offer such an extensive portfolio of adapters.
Within only one year, more than forty tools for realising a wide variety of adapter caps were realised. All automakers around the world use the system.