Case Study: Standardized SMA Cable And Connectors Reduce Costs And Improve Maintainability

Major defense aircraft manufacturers when building the critical path connections into EW and avionics components, engineers too often found themselves limited to purchasing unnecessarily expensive, proprietary cables and connectors. Whenever a connector needed replacement, engineers were strapped with a higher cost of materials and labor. These proprietary connectors and cables came from a single manufacturer, making replacement parts dependent on production schedules of one supplier – and could not be reliably obtained when and where they were needed.