Product design and engineering
Panchromos works with technology-driven start-ups, SMEs, and selected larger organisations to turn ideas, inventions and insights into tangible, useful and valuable products — into metal, plastic and silicon. We focus on maturing sensing and instrumentation concepts into real-world systems across different industries.
Our work typically spans from TRL 3 (lab proof of concept) to TRL 7/8 (operational demonstration/validation), taking technology from a promising idea to practical, deployable products and systems.
See our Services page for a breakdown of typical project scopes and activities.
How we work
Panchromos is led by me, Marc Bax. I work hands-on across electronics, optics, mechanics and firmware, taking responsibility for technical decisions and delivery from early feasibility through to field-ready systems. Where appropriate, I collaborate with a small network of trusted specialists, remaining directly accountable for outcomes.
This model combines the focus and agility of a small practice with the technical breadth required to address each project’s specific challenges.
More on how we work on our About page.
ISO 13485-certified quality system
Panchromos operates a Quality Management System certified to ISO 13485:2016, the standard specific to medical device design and development. Many projects sit within regulated domains, particularly medical devices, where structured design controls and traceability are essential.
In practice, this means that design documentation, test results, and development records produced during a project can be used directly within a client’s Design History File or technical documentation, rather than being recreated later. This reduces rework, avoids unnecessary retesting, and supports a smoother transition into later regulatory, manufacturing, and scale-up stages.
Beyond medical devices, the same disciplined approach also benefits work in other safety-critical and high-reliability sensing and instrumentation contexts.
“Panchromos helped us make molecular diagnostics simple, robust and affordable”
“Marc not only built a cost-effective functional prototype, but actively promoted our technology”
“We set out to improve image quality and ease of use while drastically lowering production cost. I’m pleased to say we succeeded on all three counts.”
Structured yet flexible project management
Engineering product development demands both structure and the ability to adapt as technical understanding evolves. I use the PRINCE2 project management method as a framework, scaled to the size, uncertainty and risk profile of each project rather than applied rigidly.
This provides clarity around objectives, responsibilities and decision points, while allowing iteration where the engineering requires it. Product development is rarely linear, and effective project management needs to accommodate that reality.
Selected projects
A small selection of projects illustrating the types of challenges we typically work on. More projects can be found on my Projects page.
Luminescence reader
A molecular diagnostics assay had promising performance, but deploying it in practice required a reader that was sensitive yet robust and affordable. Existing readers were expensive, bulky and optimised for lab environments, creating a gap between assay performance and real-world deployment.
Bomb-sniffing bees
Honeybees have an exceptional sense of smell and can detect trace concentrations of volatile compounds. The challenge was to translate this biological capability into a practical detection system — one that could be trained, deployed and interpreted reliably while screening luggage in airport terminals.
Notes
Short reflections on product development, engineering, and making things work in practice.
Writing requirement that encode value
Typical requirements documents are written with pass/fail criteria. The issue is that these mostly encode hygiene factors which do not set the product apart from alternatives. We explore how we can enhance design input to encode how a product delivers value.