A project should get less uncertain every week.
Our process exists to retire risk in the right order: the things that could kill the project first, the things that are merely details last.
Every phase ends with something you can hold, read or decide on. If a phase produces only a feeling of progress, it was the wrong phase.
The free consultation
No charge, no obligation.
You describe the problem. We tell you honestly what we think is hard about it, what we would do first, and whether we are the right team for it. If we are not, we will say so and point you at someone better. You leave with a written summary either way: yours to keep, and to use with whoever you end up hiring.
Ends with: a written summary and a clear yes or no
Framing
Agreeing what “done” means.
Before anything gets designed we pin down the requirements, the environment the product has to survive, and the constraints that are genuinely real as opposed to merely habitual. We write the load cases and the duty cycle down and we argue about them while arguing is still cheap.
Most troubled projects can be traced back to a requirement nobody wrote down, or a number everybody assumed somebody else had checked.
Ends with: requirements, load cases and a fixed proposal for the rest
Concept & feasibility
Options, compared honestly.
Two or three credible architectures, weighed against physics, cost, schedule and the skills your organisation actually has. Most of that weighing is done with models: sizing calculations, thermal and multibody simulation, structural and aerodynamic analysis, a plant model driven through the real duty cycle. An architecture that cannot survive a simulation will not survive a prototype, and finding that out takes a week here instead of a quarter later.
We identify the assumptions the whole concept rests on, and where one of them is load-bearing and the model cannot settle it, we test it early, on a rough rig, in a week, rather than in a meeting for three months.
Ends with: a concept you can decide on, with numbers behind it
Detailed design
The long, quiet part.
Schematics, PCB layouts, CAD models, firmware architecture, textile patterns, and the analysis underneath all of it: FEA on the structures, thermal models where the heat has nowhere obvious to go, multibody simulation where the mechanism moves, control simulation against a plant model, signal and power integrity on the boards. Documented as we go, in file formats you can open without us, because the design has to outlive the engagement.
You get progress you can inspect: short written updates, working subassemblies, and a standing invitation to review anything at any point.
Ends with: a complete design package, sources included
Prototype & test
We build it and try to break it.
The test plan gets written before the prototype exists, so that the results mean something. Bench testing, environmental testing, proof loading, endurance runs and field trials, with the instrumentation designed in rather than taped on afterwards.
When something fails here, that is the cheapest failure the project will ever have. We report it plainly, including the parts that were our fault.
Ends with: a tested prototype and an honest test report
Production & handover
Making it makeable.
Design for manufacture and assembly, supplier documentation, assembly and inspection instructions, test fixtures, and support through a first production series with your manufacturer or ours.
Then a real handover: not a folder dump, but a walkthrough of every decision that would be expensive to reverse by accident, recorded so the next engineer can find it.
Ends with: a manufacturing package and a documented handover
Four things we will not trade away.
You own everything
Sources, not just PDFs. Design files, firmware repositories, analysis models and the rationale behind every significant decision. No lock-in and no hostage files. If you want to continue without us, you can.
We test what we claim
We model it, then we measure it, and we tell you which of the two you are looking at. A simulated number arrives with its assumptions attached; a measured one arrives with the bench it came from. Neither ever comes from a brochure. Where all we have is an estimate, we say so, and roughly how wrong it could be.
You talk to the engineers
A small team, in direct contact. No account manager translating between you and the person actually doing the work, and no discovery of bad news at a quarterly review.
We say no
If a project sits outside what we are good at, or the budget cannot buy the outcome you want, we would rather tell you in the first conversation than in month three.
The questions everyone asks.
- How does a project usually start?
- With the free consultation, then a short paid framing phase, typically one to two weeks, which produces the requirements and a fixed proposal for everything after it.
- Fixed price or time and materials?
- Framing phases and design reviews are fixed price. Development work runs on time and materials against an agreed budget and milestones. Fixed-price development mostly buys you an argument about scope, and we would rather spend that energy on the product.
- Who owns the intellectual property?
- You do. All results, sources and documentation transfer to you. We keep only our general know-how, which is what you are hiring in the first place.
- Can you build, or only design?
- We build prototypes, test rigs and small series ourselves, and manage production through partners for larger volumes.
- Do you sign NDAs?
- Routinely. Send us yours, or use ours.
- How small can a project be?
- A two-week design review is a perfectly good place to start, and a common one.
A conversation with an engineer,
not a salesperson.
Bring a problem, a sketch, or a product that is not behaving. We will tell you what we think is hard about it, what we would do first, and whether we are the right team, before any money changes hands.
- An honest read on whether it is a fit
- Where the technical risk actually sits
- A rough order of magnitude for time and cost
- A written summary afterwards, yours to keep