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Overview

We support clients worldwide to develop devices and systems that utilise new and emerging technologies that help to shape the future of healthcare and life sciences.

The depth of experience and breadth of creativity at DCA combine to enable the creation and development of innovative solutions capable of meeting the challenging technical requirements of next generation devices in highly regulated industries.

Our in-house multidisciplinary teams utilise their extensive skill sets to generate designs for medical devices and scientific instruments with functions ranging from simple automated monitoring to sophisticated electro-mechanical control, diagnostics and connectivity.

Navigating the complexities of new and emerging technologies to create safe and effective, commercially successful products

Technology selection and due diligence

Often there are multiple options for which technologies to use and the consequences of decisions when selecting can be the difference between success and failure and the commercial impact can last decades. In this context it is vital to carry out due diligence carefully and effectively.

The process for selecting new technologies must be carried out with an in-depth and qualified understanding of the technologies and development processes concerned. Our track record in developing successful MedTech devices means that we know what to look for, and which are the right questions to ask, when helping our clients to select the right technologies for their application.

We regularly support the review and selection of new technology options, providing an independent and expert view that leverages our extensive experience from across our expert multidisciplinary teams.

Focus on the right needs and opportunities

Insightful understanding of the challenges and opportunities for users, healthcare professionals and stakeholders is a key factor in designing and deploying the right technology solutions.

Our expert design researchers work closely with our systems engineers and designers to investigate and consider the needs and opportunities of relevant parties in order to generate evidence based insights that inspire, stimulate and inform creativity in order to support the design and development of solutions that deliver real benefits.

A systems engineering approach

As a multidisciplinary design and development company, systems engineering is central to our approach.

Success depends on robust requirements definition and careful partitioning of functionality between electronic, mechanical and software sub-systems.

For this reason our electronics engineers, designers, mechanical engineers and researchers work very closely together from the start of projects to capture, define and translate requirements into effective design solutions.

The effective management of interfaces and interactions between sub-systems is key

Technology demonstrators

At DCA, much of our work is about carrying out exciting, original development work that tests the bounds of possibility through the theoretical application of a technology with a newly defined purpose or a new technology used for the first time in a particular arena. Our creative designers and engineers collaborate with our highly skilled technicians, machinists and model makers to create physical rigs, mock-ups and prototypes that are built in our in-house workshops and tested in our laboratories. This is an inherent aspect of our development work and used to explore, validate and demonstrate the developing designs relative to theoretic analysis.

Our ability to rapidly design and build technology demonstrators is invaluable when integrating software and electromechanical hardware to support efficient development and provide for effective stakeholder engagement with such technologies. Typically we combine physical and virtual prototyping, as well as mathematical and computer simulation modelling, to allow us to iteratively verify understanding to accelerate development evolution, as well as to engage with the widest range of stakeholders throughout the project.

Getting connected

Increasingly connectivity is an expectation for medical and life science devices, as it is for many other areas. Our development process and working practices are tailored specifically to deliver these products and their connectivity in an efficient and compliant way.

Our procedures are certified to ISO 13485 and aligned with IEC 62304, ISO 14971, IEC 62366 and 21CFR820 and support delivering effective expertise across each of our disciplines and help provide the flexibility and focus needed to succeed. DCA’s systems and approach allow us to tackle the development of even the most complex and innovative engineering systems with confidence and capability.

As experts in the development of physical artefacts for digital ecosystems, we are the multidisciplinary partners that can help deliver your next connected product with great confidence.

Enhancing precision

The continued miniaturisation of electronic hardware combined with increasing performance is, every day, furthering opportunities to achieve greater precision with finer control in ways not previously possible. Such trends are predicted to continue and even to accelerate, offering the potential for even greater benefits and new opportunities for healthcare facilitated by the intelligent application of MedTech.

Our multidisciplinary teams are well versed in working with cutting-edge technologies using the latest components, in a wide range of fields, to create and develop new and enhanced product scenarios.

The opportunities and challenges of Artificial Intelligence

We can support you in exploring the opportunities offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable new and enhanced products and systems. We can help you in understanding the confidentiality and intellectual property issues it presents in seeking to achieve the potential step-change performance it offers for next-generation solutions.

No longer science fiction, AI is transforming healthcare

Technology for inclusivity

Applied sensitively and effectively, MedTech can enhance a product’s inclusivity. It is critical to understand the range of use scenarios and relevant sensory, cognitive and physical constraints to help identify the potential benefits for any given product type.

Our world-class Human Factors specialists have extensive experience and tools to identify and assess the tasks and use scenarios most relevant to the capabilities of the full range of intended users, allowing innovative new features and functions to be explored and evaluated.

The teams at DCA are very experienced at balancing the many factors needed to support our clients in making the design decisions needed to achieve successful products.

MedTech - advancing healthcare

Applied with creativity and sensitivity to use, leveraging new technology to improve care and health outcomes offers significant benefit potential to patients and healthcare providers.

Emerging technologies in the realms of medical device and life science products provide opportunities and challenges for developers and regulators. There is no doubt that the intelligent application of MedTech will continue to play an important and growing part in new product development.

Whether new technology functions are an inherent part of your new product focus, or an existing system needs to be enhanced with new technology features, we have the creativity, skills and knowledge to meet the development needs and efficiently realise the potentials of applying new technologies in demanding medical and scientific arenas.

MedTech has an increasingly important role in delivering relevant healthcare benefits

Helping our clients achieve success through great product design