Design & Development

Swan EMS have in the past been engaged by a number of customers to help develop and manufacture from scratch a number of products in different industries. These have been carried out in partnership with external consultants who have considerable experience with electronic product design and with working with electronics subcontract manufacturers.

Military Electronics; naval and land, (the equipment in theatre) Railways, on train and infrastructure
Reverse engineering of electronics for obsolescent parts
Scientific Instruments
Oil and gas; ATEX (IEC60079)
LED Lighting

We have designed and developed electronic circuits, printed circuit boards, software and complete systems, ensuring they comply with legislation such as CE marking. Swan EMS have applied their production knowledge to deliver these designs in a repeatable and cost-efficient way.

Development Steps

The key development steps are shown below, highlighting how Swan EMS can assist customers with ways forward. Customers can use as much or as little development assistance as they like, From just having PCBs laid out to a supplied circuit diagram, to complete prototypes built to drawing and finally starting from scratch with a new customer idea.

Feasibility

It is usually possible to assess whether something is achievable fairly quickly with the customer through discussion and with experience. At this stage tests can be carried out to prove the concept.

Specification

A specification can be agreed with the customer, the complexity of this depends on the requirements of the market place. This specification can be reviewed to eliminate contradictions and to include compliance with EU directives.

Development

The electronic circuit is designed and if required a “veroboard” test circuit built and then a PCB and Bill of Materials is produced for prototype production. We provide full schematics of the design and gerber files for the PCB manufacture. This can be integrated with looms, connectors and enclosures to produce a total product. Software can be developed and user issues resolved with the customer. Swan EMS have programmed on board microchips in the past with such software and this can protect customer intellectual property.

Prototype Production

Swan are willing to undertake low volume (even down to single unit) runs of prototype(s) to validate designs and for submission to clients for review and certification. Swan will also review the build process for these prototypes and carry forward lessons learned to modify the design and improve production build processes, leading to an easier to build product. Prototypes can be built rapidly for early evaluation.

Product Compliance

Swan is nearby to a partner company with the capacity to carry out EMC testing to evaluate the electromagnetic compatibility of the product. Swan are also willing to carry out, through subcontracting climatic and other tests to validate the product design meets the required standards for commercial and military use.

Through our external consultant we are able to also offer Failure Modes Analysis, assessment against the Low Voltage and machine building WEEE, ROHS directives and produce manuals and guidelines for products.

Production

Once a prototype design is approved, drawings can be signed off and then the product can be made in the required volumes with production testing.

Swan EMS can quote fixed price or by day rate for such development work. If you want to explore the possibility of developing a new product just send an email roughly outlining what you are trying to do and we can go from there.