Wire and Cable manufacturers: What’s the difference?

Wire and cable manufacturers are not all the same, many have their specialties or niche. Depending on your needs, finding the right wire and cable manufacturer can be difficult. If the wire and cable you need is not easily found through distribution, chances are you will need to find a manufacturer to design and manufacture it. Wire and cable manufacturers can be categorized as follows:

• Commodity - This includes Mil-Spec, industrial, wire and cable. Their products are easily purchased through distribution. Commodity wire and cable manufacturers usually have their manufacturing lines dedicated to the products they produce regularly so when ordering a custom wire or cable from these types of manufacturers usually results in long lead times and high minimum orders. Why? They have to place the custom wire or cable order into their production schedule, set up the equipment, and stop production of their normal product on that line.

• Custom - Custom wire and cable is made to order to your specification. Custom wire and cable manufacturers are basically job shops, they set up the production lines and schedules based on their orders and this is figured into their cost. This is why you can order custom wire and cable in smaller quantities and shorter lead times than from a commodity wire manufacturer. Ordering commodity cables from a custom wire manufacturer can be costly due to the sheer volume commodity manufacturers produce these products. What makes a cable custom can be a simple as a unique color or more flexible design of a commodity cable to complicated composite cable designs.
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• Specialty - Specialty wire and cable can include extremely small gauges such as 50AWG or smaller, unusual or molded shapes, or unique materials. These custom cable manufacturers do fall into the custom category but are known for their specialties throughout the industry. Many custom wire and cable manufacturers have a specialty product or a niche market.

Working with custom wire and cable manufacturers is easy, whether you have a design, need a design or are not sure what you need. Most custom wire and cable design engineers can assist you in choosing the right materials and construction to meet your requirements. Finding the right manufacture is not difficult by using Google or Global Spec you can do keyword search or ask other industry professionals. It's a small industry.