The Innovate Engineer Process is a ten-stage product development methodology covering more than ninety activities, from first idea to product in market. It was developed by Cast Iron CAD Ltd (Brighton, incorporated 2010) across 15 years and 280+ engineered products, and is taught at the University of Brighton.
Last updated: 7 July 2026
Origins
The methodology comes out of practice, not theory. Cast Iron CAD Ltd (Companies House no. 07353071, based at Plus X Innovation Brighton) has run a version of this structure on every project since 2010, refining it across consumer, industrial, filtration, safety-engineering and bespoke product work. The same structure is taught to design and engineering students at the University of Brighton up to master’s level, and was delivered as paid lecturing to a cohort of around 12 early-stage startups at Loughborough University. Innovate Engineer publishes it openly so that anyone developing a physical product can see the whole journey before committing money to any part of it.
The two halves
Product development has two halves. The first half is about designing the right thing: understanding the problem, the user and the market well enough to commit to a direction. The second half is about designing the thing right: engineering, prototyping and manufacturing the committed direction properly. This is the Double Diamond model used across the design industry, and it matters because most product failures trace back to the first half. Innovate Engineer’s tools concentrate on that first half; the engineering half is practice work.
The ten stages
Each stage below is listed with its purpose, what it produces, and the risk it exists to manage.
Stage 1. Idea
Frame the overall purpose and context of the idea. You produce an idea statement, a user definition and a problem definition. The risk this stage manages is misidentifying the real problem.
Stage 2. Discover
Begin structured research to explore the problem and the opportunity: users, market, existing solutions. You produce a context summary, competitor and analogue notes, and a gap analysis. The risk here is false confidence, assuming the market is understood when it isn’t.
Stage 3. Innovate
Generate and group creative responses to the research insights. You produce candidate approaches with a first-pass evaluation. The risk is premature convergence, settling on the first workable answer rather than the best one.
Stage 4. Evaluate
Review, refine and test the shortlisted approach against real-world constraints. You produce a first-pass feasibility assessment with risk flags. The risk being managed is underestimating complexity.
Stage 5. Define
Translate the evaluated idea into design requirements and constraints. You produce the Specification, the document every later stage works from. The risk is locking decisions too early, before the evidence supports them.
Stage 6. Design
Develop early-stage product concepts from the defined challenge: form, mechanism, materials and a likely manufacturing route. You produce a first-pass design direction with indicative cost and timeline ranges. The risk is designing without engineering validation.
Stage 7. Engineer
Engineer the product for manufacturability and compliance: detailed design, CAD and engineering analysis. You produce engineering CAD and a detailed, analysed design. The risk is discovering feasibility or compliance issues late, when they are expensive.
Stage 8. Develop
Create and test physical and functional prototypes, and iterate until the design is validated. You produce a functional prototype and a validated design. The risk is schedule and cost overrun.
Stage 9. Manufacture
Prepare the product and the process for full production: production engineering, tooling and supply chain. You produce a production-ready product. The risk is quality escape, defects reaching customers.
Stage 10. Deliver
Coordinate launch, distribution, sales and post-launch support. You produce a product in market. The risk is misalignment between what the product was meant to do and how it is actually used.
Where the free Viability Sprint sits
The free Viability Sprint is a lightweight traversal of the early stages of the process, run with an AI assistant in about 15 minutes. It is deliberately quick, and it ends at the Specification: the Stage 5 deliverable that captures what the product must do and the constraints it must meet. It is a first pass, not deep work, but it is structured by the same methodology.
From the Specification onward the work deepens. Innovate Engineer offers paid tiers that strengthen the Sprint output: an Engineer-Verified review at £129, an Expanded Specification at £399, and a Handover-Ready Package at £699. The Specification is written to be portable, so any competent engineering or design practice can pick the project up from it. Clients who would rather keep one practice across the whole journey typically hand over to Cast Iron CAD, which delivers the engineering half, from design development through manufacture.
Using the methodology
The stages are a model of how product development actually behaves, not a rigid workflow. Real projects loop back: evaluation sends you back to research, prototyping sends you back to design. What the structure gives you is a shared map, so that at any point you know which question you are answering, what evidence you have for it, and what it would probably cost to be wrong.
The Innovate Engineer Process is published by Innovate Engineer, a brand of Cast Iron CAD Ltd, Studio 01, Plus X Innovation Hub, Lewes Road, Brighton BN2 4GL. Dave Lock BEng (Hons), founder of Cast Iron CAD, is an Industrial Advisory Board Member for Design and Engineering at the University of Brighton, where he also delivers lectures, sessions and tutorials for the design and engineering departments.