Sector

Commercial & Industrial

Our commercial and industrial sector work spans consumer-facing equipment, industrial machinery and safety-critical hardware, all designed to hold up under demanding conditions and regulatory scrutiny.

The DESIGN CHALLENGE

Precise thinking. Tougher products.

Commercial and industrial products need to be consistent, safe and reliable. That’s a difficult brief to execute.

Three different people usually interact with a product, the one who specifies it, the one who installs it and the one who uses it under pressure. Each has different pain points, and understanding them reveals different opportunities to add value. We consider all three perspectives from the earliest stages of development.

These products are subject to ever-increasing regulatory oversight of how they’re designed, tested and placed on the market. User experience expectations have also shifted. Buyers and procurement teams now expect the same quality they get as consumers. A product that’s difficult to use, maintain or dispose of will quickly lose ground.

At SDW, we account for all these things.

Clients in this sector include:

application areas

Proven depth across four areas of commercial and industrial product design.

We’ve built stakeholder analysis, requirements capture, validation and verification into every stage of our process, from initial scoping through to transfer to manufacture. Our strategic, collaborative, technical approach means we deliver well-designed, functional products that work for everyone who encounters them, at every stage of their lifecycle.

Workplace safety equipment

Safety-critical hardware designed to perform under continuous use in harsh conditions and stand up to regulatory scrutiny. We balance specifier, installer and operator requirements from the earliest stages of development through to transfer to manufacture.

Commercial equipment for demanding environments

Equipment designed for professional use, where downtime isn’t an option. We balance performance, ease of maintenance and DFM discipline in equal measure, and meet consumer expectations without compromising product durability.

Complexity, feasibility and cost engineering

Mechanically complex, often bespoke, industrial hardware, where engineering rigour and DFM discipline ensure the product’s commercial viability. We assess technical feasibility from the outset, building material selection and cost reduction into the programme at every stage.

Mechatronics and integrated systems

We develop mechanical engineering and electronics together, because that’s what these products need to deliver the required performance. We treat sensing, control, connectivity and actuation as a single, integrated engineering challenge, not as separate disciplines handed between teams.

A snapshot of our work

Hush Air Purity

A domestic air purifier that homeowners want to display, not hide away.

Seton Easy Protect

A modular, castor-mounted barrier system that assembles in minutes and cut production costs through fewer components.

RELEVANT CAPABILITIES

The disciplines behind robust product design.

Mechanical engineering

Taking your product from concept to transfer to manufacture. We handle the structural analysis, tolerance work and material selection with performance in demanding conditions in mind.

Electronics and embedded firmware

End-to-end, full-stack electronics and embedded firmware. We resolve sensing, control, connectivity and regulatory compliance within the same programme as the mechanical engineering.

Batch production

Prototyping and small batch manufacturing allow you to enter the market and gather field data before committing to full-scale production volumes and tooling.

Transition to manufacture

DFM and DFA discipline runs through every stage. We address cost, assembly time and supply chain risk before you commit to tooling, and plan transfer to manufacture from the outset.