Our Process

Our Process

• Vision

  Using a well rehearsed format, this session collates all available project information from the client into a single document and asks some pertinent questions which define the project end point and details of the route taken.

  Time: 1 week.

• Research

  The detail of the Project Vision Document is considered and, where appropriate, research undertaken to identify relevant standards, sources of information, similar products and any appropriate off-the-shelf technology which may speed later development stages. Specific issues to be addressed in this stage are: Investigate which current legislation will apply to the product (i.e. EMC and Low Voltage Directives), suggested first pass calculation of build costs. Deliverables: Research report.

  Time – 2-10 days.

• Concept

  A detailed consideration of the design of the product. At this stage we bring together all the findings of the Vision and Research stages to produce a mental picture of how the final product will look and work. This will be supplemented where appropriate, with software simulations and visualisations. The output from this stage is a Concept Design Specification. This extends the Project Definition Document into a very detailed functional specification which is used as the basis for the practical development of the first prototype. It is at this stage that we lock down the functional parts of the design. Changes after this stage in the programme can be expensive.

  Typical Deliverables: Concept Design Document, Software Flowchart, Simulated user Interfaces, Electronics block diagram, 1st sketch of enclosure and keypad, List of all key components and costs, Refinement of all the project plan based on finalisation of Concept Design, Definition of key performance parameters.

  Time: 1-4 weeks

• Risk

  Any technical aspect or new component of the proposed new product design which has not been well tried and tested before is checked out at this stage to ensure all of the foundation technology modules upon which the product is based will deliver the anticipated performance required for the end product to be successful.

  Using circuit “lash-ups”, early software and a lot of simulation we ensure that all building blocks on which the product is based work to requirements and reliably before we commit further work to detailed product design.

  Time: 1 – 4 weeks

• α Prototype

  This stage starts the practical work of the project and commences to design the various systems and sub-assemblies upon which the full product is based.

  The aim of this stage is not to produce a fully market ready design but to use a variety of prototype techniques which reduce timescales and cost to produce something reasonably similar to the final product to test the concept idea out thoroughly.

• ß Prototype

  This stage reviews the test results of the α-Prototype stage, completes all the functionality described in the Concept Design and identifies any areas of the original design which need to be addressed before the product can be considered market ready.
• Pilot

  At this stage, we refine the production process and build a first batch of production samples which may be used for early sales and compliance testing. Any production test rigs and tooling are included in this stage.
• Product

  By this point in the project, there product design is well sorted and formal responsibility for it is handed over to our Production team who will service any further orders with any batch sizes our client requires to meet sales demand.
• Support

  It is inevitable that after product launch, some end customers will want something different – maybe a new feature adding for example or the specification needs changing to address a different geographical market. To cater for these circumstances we provide ongoing technical support which continues to develop the product as the need arises and feed these design changes into our Production process in a carefully managed and fully traceable way.