Automotive innovation is driven by environmental, safety and lifestyle requirements. This means manufacturers are putting more electronic content in their vehicles with ever-increasing numbers of electronic control units (ECUs).
Modern automotive ECUs can require more than 300 electrical connections. Populating these connectors manually requires a good deal of force and physical effort from assembly line workers. Over time, this could lead to repetitive strain injury and loss of working time. Manufacturers need to ensure that this physical effort does exceed what is permissible by local labor unions.