Concept Design

Every Engineer-to-Order (ETO) program begins with a deep understanding of the application and its constraints. At FUTEK, the Concept Design phase is a collaborative effort that transforms customer needs into actionable requirements through project briefs, design inputs, risk assessments, and testing criteria. This phase sets the foundation for the entire program. Our multidisciplinary engineering team—spanning mechanical, electrical, manufacturing and software design—integrates domain-specific expertise to evaluate technical feasibility and develop a high-fidelity conceptual framework. Leveraging engineering tools such as finite element analysis (FEA) and early DFM reviews, the team identifies potential roadblocks and designs around them, ensuring that performance targets, mechanical form factors, electronic signal integration, and cost parameters are addressed from the outset. This early-phase rigor is essential to minimizing risk and unlocking maximum design flexibility and cost efficiency.

Prototype

The Prototype phase transforms early concepts into functional prototypes through rapid iteration and tight cross-functional collaboration. FUTEK’s in-house engineering team—including mechanical, electrical, and software engineers—works in lockstep to develop and refine both the sensor architecture and the supporting electronics. On the mechanical side, advanced tools such as 3D printing, precision machining, and fixture/tooling design support early-stage builds that evolve through Preliminary and Critical Design Reviews (PDR and CDR).

Simultaneously, FUTEK’s in-house electrical engineering team develops and integrates custom instrumentation solutions that meet demanding signal conditioning requirements. These electronic designs support both analog (mA, VDC) and digital outputs (UART, SPI, and USB), while achieving high sampling rates, broad bandwidth, high noise-free resolution, and low power consumption—all of which are essential for robust and reliable performance in modern embedded systems. 

By combining these mechanical and electrical design efforts under one roof, FUTEK accelerates the prototyping timeline. This stage is pivotal in identifying integration challenges early, validating performance expectations, and preparing the design for scale-up—all while maintaining alignment with customer requirements and system-level constraints.

Verification & Validation (V&V)

During the Verification & Validation (V&V) phase, the focus shifts to system-level integration and performance testing—typically conducted by the customer within their own development or testing environment. At this stage, FUTEK’s sensor and signal conditioner are installed into the customer’s platform—such as a robotic arm, surgical tool, industrial machine, or aerospace structure—and evaluated as part of the full system. The objective is to observe how the complete measurement chain behaves under simulated real-world operating conditions.

Our goal is to enable customers to assess whether the sensing system—mechanical + electronic—meets the project’s performance criteria in context. These evaluations often include assessments of linearity, hysteresis, repeatability, signal stability, and interface compatibility. While many specifications are expected to be mature and stable at this point, FUTEK remains flexible and collaborative, recognizing that insights gained during full system integration may lead to refinements or a second design iteration in response to unexpected behaviors or new constraints discovered during V&V.

Mechanical robustness—such as tolerance to vibration, temperature cycling, or sterilization protocols—is also evaluated at this stage, especially for mission- or safety-critical applications. Our design philosophy emphasizes building sensor solutions that hold up not just in the lab, but in the final system—under load, in motion, and during customer-defined qualification cycles.

Volume Manufacturing

FUTEK’s Volume Manufacturing phase is grounded in process control, scalability, and manufacturing precision. All core operations—including machining, lamination, wiring, and sub-assembly—are performed in-house, giving us complete visibility and control over build quality, scheduling, and cost. Our Quality Assurance (QA) processes are embedded into each step of production, ensuring that components and assemblies meet the design intent and maintain tight tolerances required for high-performance sensing applications.

Sourcing and inspection are conducted under the same quality framework, and our teams apply Design for Manufacturability (DFM) principles from the start to reduce downstream costs and minimize variability. Once a product reaches final assembly—including the sensor, cable, and signal conditioner—it undergoes a comprehensive calibration and certification process, typically the final step before shipment. This system-level calibration verifies full signal chain performance and ensures the complete measurement system is traceable and compliant with customer specifications.

FUTEK’s commitment to quality is backed by ISO 13485 certification for medical-grade manufacturing processes and ISO 17025-accredited calibration laboratories. This ensures that every unit we ship—whether a one-off custom solution or a high-volume production run—is validated, traceable, and ready for mission-critical deployment. This fully integrated and quality-driven manufacturing model is how FUTEK consistently delivers repeatable, high-performance sensing systems at scale—with confidence.