Our Expertise

Our experience spans a wide range of sectors and industries. Whether you're a startup with a great idea or a large enterprise, we have the knowledge and expertise to deliver highly successful solutions.

Services we provide

Discover Formulate’s capabilities to see how we can help you realise your vision.

Medical & Diagnostics

Consumer & Commercial

Sustainability

Our team brings substantial expertise in the design, development and engineering of Class I, II, and III medical devices for UK and international markets. This includes in vitro diagnostics, rehabilitation, drug delivery, life support ventilation, surgical equipment and packaging. We have experience working in compliance with relevant standards, including ISO13485, IEC60601, FDA 21CFR 820 and ISO14971, and in accordance with client quality management systems. We will work with you to deliver a safe, compliant product.

Turn your idea into a desirable, durable, user-friendly product that conforms with your brand, budget and design language. Bringing expertise in engineering and human factors, as well as a deep understanding of aesthetics and function, we will take you on a journey that culminates in a manufacturable product. Whether you have a fully formed idea, a design problem to solve or have identified a gap in the market and need help shaping your idea, we can help. Our work covers the full spectrum of consumer, commercial and industrial design projects, including:

Fast-moving commercial goods (FMCG)
Domestic appliances
Garden and leisure

Consumer, commercial, and electronic
Lifestyle and wellbeing
Factory and production

Business equipment
Safety and security
Lab and scientific

We are committed to creating environmentally responsible products that are sustainable and have a positive ecological impact. We carry out product lifecycle assessments and offer guidance on sustainable design. This can cover material choices, manufacturing methods, and how your product might be reused at end of life, in adherence with circular design principles. We integrate sustainable practices into both our product development processes and business operations, in line with our company values. With this approach, we aim to create improved, more marketable products that serve the needs of our clients, their end users and the environment.

Research

Front End of Innovation

Human Factors

Understanding where your product fits in the landscape is vital to its success. We conduct research to help you understand your users, the market, and to aid in problem solving. This process begins at the start of product development, and research is routinely revisited throughout the project. Activities include:

Gathering user insights and sentiment
Competitor analysis

Identification of market and consumer trends
Monitoring of threats and barriers

Technology scouting

Using thorough research methodologies, we can provide you with a comprehensive picture of the market landscape and an insight into barriers to entry, emerging technologies, and prevailing market trends. We can benchmark your product against industry counterparts to identify challenges and opportunities. We will collaborate with you to conduct technology scouting, facilitate interactive user testing workshops, and develop product roadmaps to maximise success.

We consider usability and user experience to be a core element of every solution. As users and observers ourselves, we understand how the psychological and physical interactions with products are evolving in an ever-changing world. Our design team, fully conversant with current regulations including ISO62366, provide safe, effective, and fully compliant designs as mandated by regulatory bodies. We work to integrate features that delight and encourage users to relate to the product and your brand. We will ensure interactions with your product will be as seamless and enjoyable as possible, aiming to elevate your product's position within its category.

Concept Generation

Product Development

Prototype and Testing

We can rapidly generate ideas from insights based on a problem or opportunity you have identified in the market. Concepts will be subject to ongoing evaluation against the inputs to ensure we fulfil your desired outcomes. We use multiple media methods to deliver concepts aligned to your brand and design language. These methods include:

Consultation
Idea mapping

Sketching
CAD

Rendering
Mock-up creation

Our multidisciplinary approach allows us to solve complex product design and engineering challenges. Our service encompasses all phases of development, including:

Creation and management of specification and design inputs
Refinement of function, and visual language
CAD
Material selection

Physical and virtual simulation
Cost of goods sold (COGS)
Tolerance analysis
Design for manufacturing and process decisions

Compliance testing
Risk management, including FMEA analysis, instructions for use and product labelling
Management of design outputs
Verification and support of validation activities

With access to the latest prototyping technologies, we can provide high-quality, physical representations of your idea. This may be a quick proof-of-concept mock-up, a final appearance model or an accurately finished functional prototype. Our prototypes allow for experimentation and refinement, mechanical testing, visual analysis for commercial review, and user experience assessment, giving you a tangible insight into the progression of your product.

Visualisation

Facilitating Manufacture

Process Development

We can provide visual communication of ideas to aid decision-making and stakeholder engagement. This may include sketches, animations, 3D models and photorealistic images. These help to establish early user preference, speed up development and enhance promotional materials.

We can aid in the selection of suitable vendors and partners, evaluating reports and samples provided to ensure your requirements are met. Our team is capable of working with a vast range of materials and their associated manufacturing methods and technologies, including polymers, metals, glassware and fabrics.

For unique design challenges, we support the development of manufacturing equipment and novel manufacturing techniques. We will work with you to ensure a high degree of repeatability in the assembly or processing of components and can provide product assembly, inspection and testing services. We also assist with setting up pilot production and scaling up of manufacturing operations.