Accelerate time to market for your connected device

Accelerate and safeguard your journey from business case to production-ready connected device with the help of our strategists, engineers, and ecosystem partners.

Cut costs and complexity with connected device & medical device engineering and consulting

Bringing a connected device, hardware product, or medical device to market is fraught with complexity – from ensuring feasibility, scalability, and user value, to complying with strict safety and security standards and minimising costs, waste, and environmental impact.

Together with our partners, our connected device consultants and engineers are here to help you navigate rising complexity and turn opportunities into tangible business value.

Integrating strategy, experience design, software and hardware engineering, and tech infrastructure, our multidisciplinary teams help you craft breakthrough products that deliver transformative impact.

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Ideate, build, and scale your connected device with our holistic support

Accelerate time to value with the help of our multidisciplinary expertise. We specialise in embedded software, firmware, electronics, mechanics, optics, design, engineering, system architecture, regulatory compliance, and sustainability. 

  • Mechanics

    Our mechanics experts tailor products to serve defined business and user needs. We verify robustness and quality while transitioning to series production – through iterative design and prototyping, by evaluating manufacturing technologies, and by conducting simulations and testing.

    Our infrastructure – spanning prototype workshops, makerspace, climate chambers, and mechanical stress test equipment – is designed to optimise for speed and quality.

    Discover how we developed a fully functional prototype of a smart connected greenhouse in just one week.

  • Electronics

    Transform your ideas into custom electronic hardware. Our electrical engineers help you design futureproof, manufacturing-ready, compliant devices, with state-of-the-art technologies.

    From analogue sensing and high-speed processing to CPU and FPGA solutions, as well as wired and wireless communication interfaces, our engineers assess feasibility quickly and commit to the highest quality standards. They leverage our in-house PCB design capabilities, SMT prototyping infrastructure, EMC lab, and climate chambers.

    Accelerate time-to-market with our rapid electronic prototyping approach.

  • Embedded software

    Harness our expertise in embedded software engineering – from low-level bare-metal systems to complex embedded Linux platforms. We specialise in real-time applications, edge AI, IoT integration, and optimising performance across hardware architectures. Our solutions are designed for scalability, security, and efficiency, empowering next-generation connected devices.

    Discover how we supported Konux to realie an IoT-powered predictive maintenance solution.

  • Optics

    Realise the smart devices of tomorrow with customised optical solutions. Our teams can help you develop optical analysers, intelligent image processing, and innovative lighting system algorithms, together with the supporting production tools and test systems.

  • Industrial Design

    Apply user-centred design to ensure a seamless customer experience, providing a superior brand experience across all your hardware and software products. With extensive experience in both physical and digital product development, we can unite both worlds while enhancing their individual benefits.

    By ensuring that design is continuously integrated with engineering and business needs, we ensure the best possible outcome with a faster time-to-market.

    Get our take on how to apply AI in product development.

  • Quality in Production

    Optimise product quality by harnessing our expertise in measurement automation, systems engineering, and software development. We can help you optimise for quality from development to production – from the POC stage, through development and the production line.

    Our teams handle all quality aspects – everything from test management and production KPIs to working in regulated environments.

  • Safety, Regulatory and QMS

    Our experienced regulatory affairs and quality management specialists support our customers in navigating a challenging and continuously changing regulatory landscape. We work together with our customers to agree on the best regulatory strategy for the product. Depending on the agreed strategy, we collaborate with notified bodies, identify applicable standards and provide input to requirements engineering and risk management activities. Through our collaborative ISO 13485 certified Agile Delivery Method (ADM), we ensure an efficient development of fully compliant products.

    Our risk management experts support risk management activities throughout the development process and guide the development team in identifying system risks and defining risk control measures. We have experience in different risk management approaches, including ISO 14971 for medical device development.

    We support clients establish or improve ISO 13485 compliant quality management systems and provide training and auditing services to ensure the compliance and effectiveness of your QMS.

  • Systems Engineering

    Our systems engineers always keep the big picture in mind, consistently focused on identifying the best possible solution to fulfil your needs. Requirements engineering and system architecture activities provide a structured approach to product development and support collaboration and communication within the project.  

    Through workshops and interviews we work with you to understand and translate your business and user needs into consistent customer requirements, laying the foundations for product verification.  We then focus on turning requirements into the optimal system architecture and design.  Working closely with our safety and regulatory colleagues, we ensure that identified risk measures are implemented, and that products are designed in compliance with the applicable regulatory and legal guidelines.

  • Design for Sustainability

    Our goal is to design, build, and operate innovative products that contribute to a circular economy. Utilising our expertise in lifecycle assessment (LCA), we evaluate the environmental impact of products throughout their lifecycle, focusing on reducing CO2-eq. emissions and minimising the product carbon footprint (PCF).

    By leveraging circular and eco-design principles, and emphasising recycled materials, we enhance efficiency and eco-effectivity at every stage of product development, driving progress toward a more sustainable future. 

Birdseye picture of a man on a construction site climbing up a metal ladder in a hard hat and high-vis jacket.

How to ideate and engineer profitable circular products

Circular models of production can improve outcomes for your business, customers, and communities. Discover how circular models and sustainable product design can unlock new value for your organisation.

Dirk Marschall Thyssenkrupp
' Our partnership with Zühlke was key to the project’s success – especially the team’s extensive experience in mixed reality and industrialising prototypes. '
Dirk Marschall
CEO, TK Elevator

The connected devices & medical products making an impact

Learn how leading companies are reinventing their development journey to realise innovative devices, maximise value, and unlock the potential of new technologies.

Accelerate the pathway from business case to production-ready connected device

Our holistic connected device consulting and hardware engineering validates and streamlines every step of your product lifecycle – from product discovery and experience design to market-ready product.

  • Smart connected solutions

    Establish the data strategy, platform, and culture you need to maximise the opportunities of AI-enabled devices for you and your customers.

    Learn more
  • Device engineering & innovation

    Design, develop, and manufacture connected devices with sustainability, security, quality, compliance, and value delivery at their heart.

    Learn more
  • Devices consulting

    Develop, modernise, or gain clarity around your systems architecture to provide a stable but flexible backbone for your device – and a platform for growth and innovation.

    Learn more
  • Product discovery

    Accelerate product discovery with the help of experts in experience design, rapid prototyping, and product strategy.

    Learn more

  • Make your device ‘smart’ and establish the right data platforms and culture for your business model and product vision.
  • Ensure your product meets the right cybersecurity and safety standards.
  • Ensure a robust but scalable cloud platform for your IoT devices.
Railway with sensors

Turn your validated idea into a production-ready physical device.

  • Transform your existing product into a category leader.
  • Ensure sustainability is at the heart of product design and lifecycle.
  • Meet the relevant quality and compliance standards.
Berlinger Sicherheit WHO

  • Minimise risks and reduce complexity when implementing new technologies and platform concepts across your hardware and software. 
  • Assess all your options with a comprehensive architecture review. 
  • Collaborate with architecture consultants to ensure a modern, scalable, and sustainable architecture. 
  • Understand how to reduce hardware costs and optimise product lifecycle for sustainability. 
Cutiss Artificial Skin

  • Collaborate with experience design experts to ensure that continuous customer insight, research, and testing informs the product development journey. 
  • Discover and deliver value, early and often, with rapid prototyping. 
  • Design for feasibility.
TK elevator

Explore our device & hardware innovation insights

Explore our latest research, insights, and perspectives on the most important trends and opportunities in the connected device space.

Meet our device engineering and consulting experts

Contact person for Germany

Ronnie Bose

Group Head Devices
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Contact person for Switzerland

Matthias Gwerder

Head of Devices
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Contact person for Austria

Robert Sorschag

Head of Devices and Business Solution Manager

Dr Robert Sorschag is Head of Devices and Business Solution Manager at the Zühlke. He is leading complex digital transformation and Innovation engagements for Austrian customers with emphasis on physical device development. Before joining Zühlke he gained about 10 years of scientific experience in the area of computer vision and machine learning. As consultant, Robert is currently focused on smart connected products, data-driven solutions, sustainable product innovation and customer experience.

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Contact person for United Kingdom

Brewster Barclay

Business Development Director

Brewster Barclay has a long history developing and selling innovative software and hardware solutions in the electronics and Internet industries, including running a start-up for 6 years. He is dedicated to helping customers create innovative solutions in healthcare and has shown this outside of his Zühlke responsibilities in his frequent mentoring of e-health and medtech startups.

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Contact person for Hong Kong

Connie Yeung

Business Development Manager

Connie oversees the Insurance and other key business verticals in Hong Kong. She has over 10 years of experience working in both Finance and IT industry, supporting a wide range of organisations including Fortune 500 clients. With that, she has gained extensive insight into how enterprises can create better business outcomes with digital innovation. Connie is also active in foundations supporting initiatives on women leadership and women in IT.

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