Our process

During the Insights phase we tackle two key topics: ensuring this is a problem worth solving and if it is: understanding the problem deeply before thinking about solutions.

First, we figure out if your ideas or technology have applications resulting in market traction and for which customer segments there is the greatest fit. This involves clearly defining your customer, problem, solution and identifying key assumptions and risks to address. We validate those assumptions by probing the market first-hand. As a result, we increase the potential of a successful product by turning assumption into fact and help you avoid investing in the wrong idea.

When your value proposition is validated, we adopt a "problem-first" approach and focus on fully understanding the problem or idea, since "understanding the problem is half the solution". This involves immersing ourselves in the problem space by experiencing it first hand, performing observations, analysis, stakeholder research, workshops, interviews and surveys. The goal is to define the correct set of functional requirements that deliver the most value and shape your MVP. This is the foundation on which the rest of the development is built.

In the Solutions phase, we start to develop both engineering & design concept based on the functional requirements employing human-centered design, brainstorming techniques, sketches and 3D models. Where the engineering focuses on the technical solutions and making it work on the "inside", the design focuses on how it should look and feel, the brand identity and how you'll interact with it on the "outside". This multidisciplinary approach results in concepts that are a perfect marriage between desirability and feasibility.

The most suited concepts are selected through a risk-based design approach, where we identify the greatest challenges and risks and set them off against the potential gains and opportunities. Based on the largest unknowns we define which subsystems require feasibility testing through work-like prototypes to derisk technical challenges and ensure user adoption before making final choices.

Once the largest risks are mitigated in the previous phase, we finalize the design inputs and agree on the system architecture and document it in diagrams and descriptions: key components, manufacturing techniques, projected hardware cost, hardware and software interactions, functional flow of the system, … The industrial design is further defined through developing A-surface CAD master models and color-material-finish definitions resulting in high-fidelity renders.

Finally, we complete and freeze all detailed requirements, considering all legal, safety, performance and usability needs and agreeing on how to verify them in a test plan. Once signed off, we're ready to go.

Now it is up to fully developing the best systems into integrated solutions and making it work. Here, the engineering is seamlessly integrated with the design resulting in realistic "looks-like; works-like" prototypes. This involves mechanical, electronics, electrical and firmware engineering; but also design for manufacturing, (dis)assembly and cost.

We go through rigorous confidence testing, both in-house and with pre-compliance labs, to ensure passing final verification and certification in the next phase before investing in expensive tooling (if any) and freezing the design. In the case of one-off or low-volume machines, this is often where the process already comes to a conclusion with a factory acceptance test.

With the design frozen, we can focus on industrialization by developing and prototyping the production process and engineer consistency at scale. This is achieved through creating and testing processes and tools that facilitate the manufacturing process while also setting up the supply chain and manufacturing a trial run to be used as test samples for process validation.

When both design and process are final and representative, the time comes to perform final verification and certification on these samples, so your machine or product is ready for market release. We provide all small-scale manufacturing in-house to bridge those first batch needs for your early market or clinical trials but are equipped to help you transition to larger-scale manufacturing with our network of trusted OEM/ODM partners.