The calculations, checks and hand-work you repeat,
turned into tools that suit where they are used.
We publish the calculations we use in our own design work as free calculators. Beam deflection, bolted joints, compression coil springs, the slider-crank and the toggle mechanism. None of them asks for an account, and all of them finish inside the browser.
Those are general first-pass tools. On a real site the picture is different: the materials are already chosen, the safety factors have been settled in-house, and every department has its own words for things. A general tool's answer cannot be used as it stands. Rebuilding it around your own standards is what this service is.
The material list narrowed to the grades you actually buy; safety factors and allowables set to your internal standard. Even the wording of the verdict follows how your team talks, so a new engineer can use it straight away.
Enter the conditions, get the models that will do the job and a ballpark price. No more paging back and forth through a catalogue picking figures out by hand.
Reconciling parts lists, checking naming conventions, converting a supplier's file format. The checks that come round every time and nobody wants to do.
If the same steps are repeated every week, they can be reduced to one button. We start by counting together how often it happens and how long it takes.
It need not be mechanical engineering. Anything where the numbers and the steps are settled — office work, production control, quality — is in scope.
Browser tools are not all we build. The form follows who uses it, where, and what it has to touch. A browser, if it goes out to suppliers as well; an add-in, if it should stay inside the software people already have open; a desktop application, if it has to reach files on the machine or a piece of connected equipment.
Browser tools
Hand over a URL, or drop in a single file. Nothing to install, no account to create. Suits sending it outside the company, a mixed Windows and Mac office, or reading it on a tablet.
Desktop applications (Windows / macOS)
Reaches files on the machine, shared folders and connected equipment directly. It can sit resident and run by itself, or come up on a keyboard shortcut. Delivered with an installer.
Office add-ins
A button added to the PowerPoint or Excel ribbon. People stay in the software they already use, with one more thing they can do. Nobody has to learn a new application.
They can be mixed within one project — the calculation in a browser, say, with a small resident desktop tool that writes the result back into a drawing file name.
| Browser tools | JavaScript / TypeScript (with HTML and CSS) |
|---|---|
| Windows desktop | C# (.NET) |
| Office add-ins | C# (.NET, built into the PowerPoint or Excel ribbon) |
| macOS desktop | Swift (SwiftUI) |
| Automation and data processing | Python |
| Resident and scheduled tasks on Windows | PowerShell |
Those are simply what we reach for most often. If you want it in a particular language, we will work in that one. Where your own people will take it on after delivery, choose a language your team can read — and we will hand it over in a form they can carry, with a note on what to change and where.
1. Show us how it is done now
A spreadsheet, a sheet of paper, or someone's head — any of them is fine. We work out together where the time goes and where the mistakes come from. There is no charge for this part.
2. Something that runs, first
Rather than passing a specification back and forth, we put something you can touch in front of you. Touching it always brings out what was really wanted, and we work from there.
3. Fix it while it is in use
It goes to the people who will use it and we fix what gets in their way. Delivery is not the end: when your internal standards change, we take on the changes too.
The cost depends on the size of the job. We will give you a first estimate free of charge, including how much work it looks like. Start with the question of whether it is worth building at all — and if we think it is not, we will say so.
We understand the calculation. Outsource a design tool and the conversation usually starts with “send us the formulas”. Because we take on the structural design itself, we can join the discussion about what ought to be calculated in the first place. It is fine to come to us before the formulas are settled.
We think about how it gets to people. A browser tool is a URL to hand over; a desktop application is one installer; an Office add-in leaves people in the software they already use. Which form it takes is settled with you at the start, including which one your IT department will pass most easily.
What you type stays with you. In a browser it is built the same way as the calculators we publish: everything happens in the user's browser. On the desktop the data never leaves the machine at all. Either way, design values are never sent to a server on the internet. We can also install it on your own server, or in a form that works with no network at all.
Confidentiality is handled as it is on a design project. The internal standards that go into the tool are held under the same terms as our design work. See how we handle confidentiality.
The five below are tools we built, published and run ourselves. Judge the quality from the working article rather than from a brochure.
Six sections, four support conditions, with a bending moment diagram. The section itself is drawn as you change it.
How the external load divides, bearing pressure under the head, margins against slip and shear — with three separate verdicts.
Torsional stress with the Wahl correction, plus checks on spring index and solid length.
Run the crank round and watch how speed and torque change near the dead points.
Force ratio and clamping force for a production clamp, with the buckling of the links on the same screen.
Deciding whether it is worth building, and the first estimate, are both free. Same contact as for design and prototype enquiries.
Contact us