What Our Product Research & Development Services Include
At DTI, each research and development project is guided by technical insight, materials expertise, and decades of hands-on experience.
By combining analytical design thinking with manufacturing knowledge, our services ensure that every concept has a clear and proven route to production.
Explore our research and product development services below:
Research & Feasibility Studies
Before physical prototyping begins, digital analysis provides clarity and control.
Using 3D modelling, simulation, and tolerance analysis, designs can be evaluated against your specifications, including requirements for strength, weight, thermal behaviour, assembly, and manufacturability. This helps identify potential issues before investment in physical prototypes.
Feasibility studies highlight opportunities for improvement and confirm whether the concept is technically and commercially viable. This data-driven approach eliminates guesswork, preventing costly rework, and ensuring a confident transition into physical testing.
Concept Design & Engineering
Every successful product begins with a clear idea and a precise plan.
Our concept design & engineering capabilities enable us to connect creativity with capability, delivering the perfect combination of design-based thinking and real-world manufacturing experience.
By aligning design intent with production requirements from the beginning, we help resolve potential manufacturing issues and reduce commercial and scheduling risk, giving you a clearer route from development to production.
Material Research & Selection
Material selection defines how a product performs, feels, and survives in its specified environment.
DTI’s R&D specialists investigate polymers, alloys, composites, and coatings to identify materials that meet your requirements while balancing strength, durability, sustainability, and cost.
By combining methods for analysing materials against product specifications with production insight and experience, we advise you on the best materials to improve product lifespan, simplify assembly, and enhance sustainability.
Depending on your requirements, R&D programmes may focus on reducing weight, ensuring product compliance, and improving sustainability.
Prototyping & Testing
Research and development moves beyond theory when designs are tested. Functional prototypes are produced using actual or representative materials and processes to verify performance under real-world conditions.
Mechanical, thermal, and environmental testing then validates performance and compliance, providing evidence for approval and regulatory submission, where required. The iterative process shortens development cycles and gives clients the assurance that products are ready for production.
Design for Manufacture & Optimisation
A design that works as a prototype won’t necessarily perform the same on a production line.
Our engineers review every design against the manufacturing process, covering draft angles, wall thickness, tolerances, part count, and assembly steps to identify and resolve any issues.
The design is then refined to reduce cost and risk, which can include consolidating parts, changing material grade, or simplifying certain features. Simulations allow us to test changes digitally before committing to a prototype, ensuring a product that is production-ready.
Compliance & Approval Support
Depending on where your products or components are going to be used, there will be certain compliance requirements and regulations that you need to follow.
At DTI, our approach builds compliance into the design from the start, removing the need to fix or amend a product further down the line. We can arrange pre-compliance testing and work with accrediting bodies to ensure your product or components are fully compliant.
Our in-house quality control processes follow industry best practices, so that same discipline carries through from development to production.
Transition to Production
The transition from prototype to volume production can be a stalling point when development and production requirements are handled by different teams.
At DTI, we handle both, meaning the engineers who design and develop your products stay involved as they transition to production. This keeps the knowledge gained during development connected to the manufacturing process.
We manage tooling, pre-production samples, and first-article inspections, checking each part against the approved designs before full production begins. You maintain a single point of contact from first sketch through to delivery of the mass-produced product, helping you coordinate decisions and track progress throughout the project.
Our Product Development Process
When completing product research or development projects, we follow a tried-and-tested process to deliver designs that meet your technical specifications and can be progressed into volume production.
Our product development process includes:
- Discovery & Brief: Requirements, budgets, target cost, and volumes
- Feasibility: Digital evaluation, risk review, & early cost estimates
- Concept & Detailed Design: CAD, DFM reviews, & material choice selection
- Prototype & Testing: Functional prototypes; mechanical, thermal, & environmental testing against agreed specifications
- Validation & Approvals: Design freeze, compliance, & pre-production sampling
- Production Hand-Over: Tooling, first-article inspection, & scale-up
We lean on and utilise the extensive experience and expertise of our entire team, ensuring every step of our product development process adheres to the same strict quality standards we are known for.
Have a product concept but aren’t sure where to start?
Our engineers can review your requirements and help identify the most appropriate next steps, whether that’s feasibility work, design development or prototyping.
Why Choose a Development Partner Who Also Manufactures?
The benefits of working with a development and manufacturing team that are under one roof cannot be overstated.
The flexibility and clarity available when working with a development partner who also manufactures can be the difference between product success – staying within budgets and meeting tight deadlines – or project failure.
When working alongside DTI, you benefit from the expertise of our entire team, ensuring an aligned, efficient, and detailed project. We have real specialists in research, product development, and all facets of manufacturing, removing the need to jump between different partners and time-consuming handovers.
The benefits of choosing DTI as your product research, development, and manufacturing partner include:
- Fewer redesigns
- An aligned approach
- Earlier cost certainty
- 30+ years of expertise
- A faster route to market
Supporting Grant-Funded & Innovative Projects
Many clients undertaking innovation programmes or government-funded projects need to demonstrate measurable progress from concept to prototype within defined budgets and timeframes.
DTI provides practical engineering and manufacturing support to help turn those funded ideas into tangible, validated outcomes.
Our team assists with translating design intent into manufacturable solutions, identifying suitable materials and processes, and outlining realistic prototyping stages to meet programme milestones.
We help overcome common development challenges such as cost constraints, technical feasibility, and production validation – ensuring every stage of the project delivers clear, reportable progress and credible results.
Tools, Testing, & Engineering Capabilities
Our engineering support combines design review, 3D CAD, material and process selection, prototyping, design for manufacture, and production planning. The tools and methods used are selected to suit your product, its stage of development, and the requirements that need to be verified.
Prototype builds help assess fit, function, and assembly, while inspection and testing requirements focus on the features that affect performance. This gives you a clearer understanding of how the product meets its specifications and where further development is needed.
Where specialist analysis or testing is required, such as CE and electrical testing for EMC, the Low Power Directive, or sections of Medical IEC 6061, we coordinate appropriate support with specialist subcontractors as part of the agreed programme.
Where your product requires specific testing, we can design and build equipment and run tests using custom setups suited to the technical requirements. This allows performance to be assessed against the particular demands of your application.
Have specific testing or engineering requirements?
Speak to our team about your product’s technical challenges and how our engineering, prototyping and testing capabilities could support your development project.
Product Development FAQs
How much do product development services cost?
The cost of our research and product development services varies depending on the requirements you have. A range of factors can affect the cost, including project complexity, the number of design and prototype changes, and whether tooling is required.
As a fully integrated manufacturing partner, we deliver a range of services, giving you the option to use our speciality for certain aspects of a project or entrusting us to handle the entire process from start to finish. Depending on which or how many services you require, the cost will vary.
If you are interested in learning more about our manufacturing services or want to know more about costs, please contact us today.
How long does it take to develop a new product?
The time it takes to develop a new product depends on a range of factors, including:
- The complexity of the project
- The number of iterations required throughout the design and manufacturing process
Timescales can also be affected by input from in-house or external designers and how far the project has progressed before our involvement.
We work to clearly understand your requirements, enabling us to provide a clear timeline as early as possible. This includes allowing for testing against industry or mandatory regulations across different sectors, which can extend development times.
Understanding these requirements early helps you plan around the key stages of the project.
Who owns the intellectual property?
Intellectual property ownership and the use of project drawings, designs and technical information are agreed as part of the project terms before work begins. This includes any existing intellectual property brought into the project and any new work created during development.
We discuss confidentiality arrangements from the outset and agree how we’ll protect your designs, drawings and technical information before you share them with us.
Can you work from a sketch or early concept?
Yes, we can work from sketches and early concepts. The skills and capabilities of our in-house team allow us to take your product from first thoughts to full specifications.
Our in-house research and design teams can take your early concepts to the next stage, developing them into detailed designs ready to progress towards a finished product. Many of our projects start as an idea or concept, from large corporations to individual inventors. Each has its own requirements and needs an approach suited to the project.
We support our clients throughout the entire process, from initial designs, development, and ultimately, manufacturing.
Can you handle the entire manufacturing process?
Yes, we can. Our fully integrated, in-house team can manage your project from start to finish. We manage design, development, tooling, sampling, testing, and volume production, keeping your technical and quality requirements central to each stage.
During our 30+ years in business, we have worked with customers ranging from global multinationals to individual inventors supported by angel investors. This has given us the skills and experience to support different customer requirements and deliver products against demanding technical specifications and tight schedules.
Learn more about the work we complete by exploring our case studies online now.
What volumes do you work with?
We support projects from individual prototypes and small development batches through to ongoing production. The appropriate manufacturing route depends on your product, material, process, and expected demand. We can discuss initial quantities, likely production volumes, and tooling requirements to help you plan a practical and affordable route forward.
Speak to our engineering team today to get started.
Get in touch today to discuss your next project
Whether you have a question, require more information, or want to discuss a potential project, our expert engineering and operations teams are on hand to help you.
We look forward to hearing from you and collaborating on innovative solutions for your business.
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