Latches that click, seals that hold, housings that never creep.
Latch strain, creep under terminal retention and sealing at temperature, checked before the housing is tooled.
Book a pre-tooling review →
Connector, Harness & Electronics Tier-1
Polymer Parts That Click, Seal, and Never Creep
A connector housing is a million-cycle promise: click home, seal out the environment, hold terminal force — at under-hood temperature, under vibration, for the life of the vehicle. Every powertrain on the road runs on those connections. ETS brings 41 years of plastics design, material selection, and failure-analysis practice to the engineering teams behind them.
Talk to an Engineering Team →Purpose-built for connector, harness, and electronics engineering teams — the TE Connectivity, Molex, Aptiv, Kostal, SEWS (Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems), and Yazaki tier, and the hundreds of specialists around them.
ICE48V Mild-HybridHybrid (HEV)PHEVBEV
The Toughest Polymer Duty Cycle in the Vehicle Isn't a Bumper
A housing is asked to latch, seal, and hold terminal position for the life of the vehicle — at elevated temperature, through thermal cycling, vibration, and fluids. ICE, hybrid, or EV, the polymer failure modes don't change; the qualification stakes do. The ETS discipline is simple: design it to click, prove it seals, and make sure it never creeps.
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Miniaturized High-Temp Housings
Thinner walls, tighter pitch, hotter under-hood environments. High-temperature polymer selection — PA66, PPA, PPS, and LCP families — decided by real thermal, chemical, and assembly realities, not the first line of a datasheet. The same discipline scales to miniaturized EMI-shielded enclosures.
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HVIL & Interlock Systems
The high-voltage interlock loop is only as safe as its plastic. Interlock parts must stay dimensionally stable and mechanically positive across the vehicle's life — a dimensioning, material, and tooling problem we teach as calculable design, not trial and error.
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Gaskets, Seals & Sealing Joints
Compression set, sealing-joint geometry, and environmental sealing at the connector interface. A leak that surfaces as a field failure started months earlier as a material-selection or joint-design decision. We train your team to make that decision correctly the first time.
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Arc-Tracking & Electrical Integrity
Tracking resistance, comparative tracking index, and flame-retardant selection that doesn't embrittle the part or undermine its mechanical function. Electrical integrity is a materials decision made at part design — long before the test lab sees it.
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Creep & Relaxation Resistance
Terminal normal force is a spring fighting polymer relaxation. Creep and stress relaxation under continuous load and temperature decide whether the connection still works in year ten. We teach the analysis that predicts it — and the design choices that prevent it.
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Second-Source Qualification
Qualifying a second resin, tool, or plant without re-opening latch, seal, and creep failure modes. Second-sourcing has become a product requirement in its own right — and a discipline your engineers need to own before the supply chain demands it.
What Your Engineering Team Takes Back
Our seminar, training, and consulting packages are built for connector and harness engineering orgs that need working methods, not theory.
Live Seminar
Designing Plastic Parts for Assembly — 3 Days, 1,300+ Slides
Structural analysis, material screening, and DFM decision tools — snap-fits, latches, seals, and bosses taught as calculable design. Case histories from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, GM, Chrysler, and Delphi production programs, taught by Paul A. Tres — SPE Fellow and author of the industry-standard text, now in its 10th edition.
Consulting Retainer
Design Review & Program Support
Catch latch fatigue, seal compression errors, warpage, and weld-line weakness before tooling is cut. Fixed-price reviews, program launch support, and a senior engineer on call when a terminal-retention or creep question turns urgent.
ETS Academy
Institutionalize the Method
100+ hours of structured training with monthly coaching, so design, materials, and process engineers align on one methodology across your whole organization — not just the three people who attended the seminar.
ChatETS
The Plastics Answer Engine, Free
Trained on 41 years of ETS failure data. Ask it about a high-temperature housing resin swap, a compression-set failure in a seal, or creep in a terminal header and get DFM-grade materials and failure answers in seconds. One real question, free, no credit card.
What's Changing in the Connector World Right Now
Second sources, recycled resins, 48V growth, and zonal consolidation — the industry is re-qualifying faster than at any time in a generation. These are the signals your next RFQ will be judged against.
Second Sourcing
Molex Ships the eHV60 With Validated Second-Sources
Molex extended its eHV high-voltage connector portfolio with the eHV60 for auxiliary high-voltage functions — DC/DC converters, on-board chargers, e-compressors, e-axles — compliant to USCAR-2 and LV215, and launched with validated second sources to de-risk the supply chain. When a leader treats second-sourcing as a product feature, qualifying the second source becomes an engineering discipline your team needs to own.
Recycled Content
TE Connectivity Qualified Recycled Polyamide in Connectors
TE Connectivity and BASF introduced automotive connector components molded in Ultramid Ccycled — a chemically recycled polyamide made from post-consumer waste — at CHINAPLAS 2025. Recycled content in a safety-relevant connector is now a qualification problem, not a marketing one. Our material-selection training covers how to qualify recycled resins without giving up thermal or creep performance.
48V Growth
48V Mild-Hybrids Are Multiplying Connector Environments
As 48V mild-hybrid systems spread, demand is rising for low-voltage, high-power connectors that live in the same under-hood heat as full-voltage parts. More connectors, more environments, and more polymer-selection decisions per vehicle — in a powertrain ICE-era engineers already understand. That's a training problem, and it's squarely ours.
Zonal Architecture
Aptiv Is Cutting Harness Weight With Zonal Design
Aptiv's Smart Vehicle Architecture consolidates wiring toward zonal designs to cut weight and complexity — a meaningful lever when an EV harness can weigh roughly double the ICE equivalent. And with Aptiv separating its Electrical Distribution Systems business into a standalone company, sourcing relationships are being rebuilt across the industry. Consolidation plus restructuring means hundreds of parts are being re-qualified — a DFM moment for whoever is ready.
The Credential That Holds Up in a Re-Qualification
Connector programs live and die by qualification. When a platform pivots, hundreds of parts need re-qualifying — Nissan's Canton shift from EV to V6 hybrids, Honda's flexible ICE/hybrid/EV lines in Ohio, and Stellantis' new STLA One architecture are the reality of 2026 — and every one is a connector re-qualification moment.
41 years Inside Automotive Programs
Our data comes from real production programs — not textbooks. The same failure-analysis discipline that caught issues for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, GM, Chrysler, and Delphi is what your team picks up — applied to the smallest, most safety-critical parts in the vehicle.
Recognition Your Engineers Trust
SPE Automotive Innovation Awards carry real weight in this industry — and connector and electrical-component programs are among the honored applications. We track the winning part-consolidation and material programs every year and teach the methods behind them.
41+
Years of Engineering
500+
Companies Served
19,800+
Engineers Trained
10th
Edition of the Standard Text
Built for the people who decide
Whoever signs off, the answer holds up.
A connector and harness decision crosses four desks before it ships. Here is what ETS gives each of them.
Risk you can put a number on.
A fixed-price pre-tooling review starts at $3,500. One line of the failure ledger costs $10K–$75K once steel is cut. Seats, training and engineering hours can share a single annual agreement.
What a review covers →An expert built for cross-examination.
Fellow of SPE and author of the field’s standard text. Expert-witness work since 1997. A conflict check comes first, and availability, a CV and fees follow within one business day.
Request a conflict check →Simple to buy, easy to audit.
Pay by check, ACH, purchase order or card. Fixed price where applicable, with scope, timeline and quote agreed before work begins, and an NDA signed on request before we see anything.
Start the paperwork →Ready to Take the Risk Out of Your Next Qualification?
Tell us about the part — a miniaturized housing, an interlock, a seal, a creep problem you're chasing, or a second-source qualification you need to land. A senior engineer replies within one business day with a scoped next step, fixed price where applicable, and timeline. Nothing you share leaves ETS; we'll sign an NDA before we look at anything.
Contact Engineering →