Advanced Cable Design: Remee

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WIRE & CABLE

Advanced Design

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AI & R&D ... has its time come?

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Remee Wire & Cable: where R&D drives every innovation At Remee Wire & Cable’s 250,000-sq-ft facility in Florida, New York, relentless cable design has pushed the company’s capabilities beyond its size. Below, Tom Valentine, EVP of sales & marketing, explains how R&D and hands-on problem-solving transformed the company from a coaxial producer to a leader in complex hybrid and fiber projects—a range few in the sector can match.

Remee’s path hasn’t been At Remee Wire & Cable (Remee), R&D isn’t just a typical for its size. “We delibdepartment, but the very essence of its business approach. erately stayed away from being “Our R&D is our philosophy,” observed Tom Valentine, a commodity player, churning EVP of sales & marketing, who traced the company’s most out endless runs of basic cable,” unusual history from a simple coaxial cable manufacturer Valentine said. “Our decision to a producer of advanced products, including sophisticated was always to specialize, to chase hybrid fiber-copper solutions. tough projects, even if it means Starting with coaxial cable in the 1980s meant workmore headaches.” Instead of ing with familiar materials: polyethylene, PVC, copper Valentine rigid production timetables and and copper-covered steel. Expansion into security and life relentless cost-cutting, Remee safety cables followed naturally, sharing similar manufacbuilds in flexibility for custom work. Sometimes months turing techniques and distribution channels. are filled with testing and waiting for certifications, other The real complexity emerged in the mid-1980s when times quick pivots are needed to meet market shifts. “It’s Remee entered fiber optic cable manufacturing. Suddenly, a balancing act,” Valentine noted. “But it’s the only way the company was working with optical glass instead of we’d want to run things.” copper, transmitting photons rather than electrons. Making Valentine said that Remee’s mindset—embracing chala fiber optic cable requires protecting delicate strands of lenges and learning from missteps—is what makes evoluglass with specialized jacketing materials such as Hytrel tion possible. “Every cable we make is a story. Sometimes and medium-density polyethylene, while devising ways we get exactly what the customer wants right away. Other to ensure accuracy at every connection point. “It starts to times we learn more from what become a physics and chemistry doesn’t work.” Sometimes deadlines experiment,” Valentine explained. are brutal. “When you’re up against “You don’t have to worry about time, and something isn’t right, you capacitance when you’re passing don’t just throw it out. You pull the photons, but you do have to worry team together and hit it again, from about mechanical connections when another angle. That grit is part of these strands of glass are being Remee’s tradition.” terminated at some point in line.”

Remee’s evolution means also keepA pivotal moment came when ing an ear open for market changes both IBM and Corning approached and client feedback. Valentine spends Remee to develop hybrid fiber-coptime visiting clients, watching how per cables for IBM’s next-gentheir cables perform in real situaeration supercomputers. That tions. “That’s where you see what collaboration set a pattern that really matters—how the cable bends, continues today: taking existhow it lasts, whether it fails when it ing knowledge and applying it to shouldn’t. You can’t get that from a unprecedented challenges.

Remee Wire & Cable’s Steve Luciana and spreadsheet.”

Valentine said that designing new Cesar Vasquez: engineers extraordinaire.

Designing cables is more than specs cables isn’t just a matter of swapand drawings; it’s trial and error, ping materials or tweaking existing discussion, and late nights working designs. “Sometimes a customer through problems. asks for something that looks simple, but it’s really like Valentine said that what sets Remee apart is its “tribal starting from scratch. You run into problems you didn’t knowledge,” the accumulated understanding of how expect—materials don’t behave the way you hoped, or materials behave, interact, and perform across decades you realize you need a whole new way of putting things of experimentation and production. That comes from together. That’s when you find out what kind of company Engineering Manager Steve Luciana and Lead Process you are.”

Engineer Cesar Vasquez, who together represent a century Every new cable is a joint effort, beginning with converof experience. “Steve and Cesar have been doing this so sations with engineers and buyers, Valentine said. “Also, long, they can often spot trouble before anyone else. You not all projects succeed initially, so we try again, and the need more than formulas—you need the practical knowlexperience adds to our knowledge base.”

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product to different machines and experimenting with edge to know what will work and what won’t. There’s no polymer combinations that would provide the necessary substitute for experience.” flexibility without compromising durability. Six months At the same time, expertise unto itself is not the final of prototype iterations with broadcast engineers focused solution. Tribal knowledge is tested when customers presentirely on achieving the right “feel”—cables that could be ent seemingly impossible requirements: cables that must repeatedly coiled and uncoiled in high-stress environments function in Phoenix heat and Canadian cold, meet direct while maintaining signal integrity. burial standards while maintaining quarter-inch outer Unlike companies focused on commodity products diameter limits, and satisfy multiple international certificarunning 24/7 operations, Remee, a mid-volume, hightion requirements. “Steve and Cesar know how dissimilar value manufacturer, deliberately embraces what Valentine plastics act when they are put against or with one another calls “tentative” manufacturing schedules to accommodate in an overall cable design, but they don’t know what the custom development work. This flexibility comes at a cost customer wants. So they have to apply some of that theobut enables capabilities that larger commodity manufacturretical knowledge about these materials as they’re designers cannot match. ing new products.”

This discipline manifests in Remee’s four-quadrant Being able to switch gears and explore new avenues analysis framework: high volume/low value, mid volume/ has been key for Remee. “We’re not a huge company, mid value, low volume/high value, so we have to be nimble,” Valentine and high volume/high value. The said. “Big manufacturers can afford company deliberately positions itself to run massive orders over and in profitable niches where its tribal over. That’s not our sweet spot. Our knowledge provides sustainable strength is making hard-to-build competitive advantages. specialty cables for customers who Of note, Valentine himself has a need something unique.” cable heritage, one that started long Another aspect that cannot be before he joined the field 26 years ignored is that R&D must produce ago at Belden. His father, John results, Valentine said. The compaValentine, logged 30 years at Belden ny’s philosophy is to support new Wire & Cable, where he was execprojects, but if it is not for an existutive vice president. Work matters ing customer, there has to be a busiRemee Wire & Cable’s PowerPipe™ Class 4 often were part of talk at the dinner ness plan that shows why the market fault-managed power cables. table. Time passes, and one of the will welcome it, especially as results lessons his father passed along— seldom happen quickly. planning for the future—is now the backdrop for Remee.

However, in the case of a revolutionary product like “Tribal knowledge ends when the tribe breaks up,” Remee’s Class 4 fault-managed PowerPipe™ distribution Valentine said. He noted that Steve and Cesar reprecable—dual-listed as CL4Z/CL4P—it took a full year to sent irreplaceable institutional knowledge that must be go from concept to production. As a result, Remee is the preserved and leveraged more effectively. “We could put only manufacturer to offer this cable today. “We spent a catalog together of polymers, their flame rating, their about three months in prototyping because we kept misstemperature rating, their flexibility or their durometer,” he ing the marks,” he recalled. “We would hit four of the five said. “We could literally model cables based on that library requirements and then make the necessary revisions to pass or that captured tribal knowledge.” all the tests.”

The goal isn’t to replace human expertise but to accelEven more complex was Remee’s SMPTE 311 camera erate the development process, reducing prototype cycles cable for broadcast applications, a project requiring 18 and enabling faster time-to-market for custom solutions. months of development with six months devoted solely Valentine emphasized the competitive advantage this could to prototyping. The cable had to incorporate copper pairs, provide: “Everybody remembers Charles Lindbergh. I fiber optic strands, central strength members, braid shielddon’t want to be the second person across the Atlantic.” ing, perfect roundness, and exceptional flexibility for Valentine said that Remee stands at an inflection point demanding broadcast environments. The breakthrough about implementing artificial intelligence. Its adoption is came from applying tribal knowledge from the company’s likely if not inevitable, yet that evolution will not change earlier IBM hybrid cable work. the company’s fundamental philosophy. Technology will “We looked at the design that the customer had from enhance and preserve tribal knowledge, not replace it. a connector perspective and we said this looks a lot like In an industry where a failed cable connection can cost the composite cable that we made for IBM,” Valentine careers and catastrophically impact major events, Valentine recalled. “It has pairs that are somewhat twisted. It has said, Remee’s philosophy of treating R&D as a core idenfiber in it. It’s about the same size. Now we need to make tity rather than a peripheral function will provide the founit perfectly round and flexible.” The solution required dation for continued innovation. reimagining their manufacturing approach, moving the W W W. W I R E N E T. O R G

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