Recovering fragmented design data and creating a fully maintainable product file for future manufacture and updates
When a product is developed, its design is captured through many forms of data: requirements, component selections, electrical and mechanical drawings, PCB layouts, and manufacturing files. Together, these form the technical construction file that enables the product to be built, tested, and certified.
Over time, however, design data can become fragmented, archived in different formats, or even lost altogether. This becomes a real challenge when updates are needed, as without the original source files, making changes can be slow, risky, or impossible.
Challenge
One of our clients faced exactly this situation. They needed to update an ageing product due to component obsolescence, but the technical construction file existed only as PDF documents. None of the original ECAD source files could be found.
Our task was to reverse engineer the design from the available documentation and recreate it in a modern ECAD tool, ensuring it could once again be manufactured and maintained.
Project Overview
The project involved reconstructing a complete electronic design package from limited legacy documentation. With no original ECAD files available, the goal was to create a fully maintainable and manufacturable design while ensuring functional equivalence to the original product.
Action
Our engineering team carefully recaptured the design using an industry-standard ECAD platform. This was not a simple copy of what was on paper. We had to understand the original design intent so that any replacement components or circuit changes would not compromise performance or compliance.
The client contributed valuable historical knowledge to help us interpret the design decisions. Once the design was recreated, we carried out a formal review and built a small prototype batch. A structured test plan was developed, and verification testing was performed to ensure the new design matched the behaviour of existing units.
OUTCOME
The client now has a fully recaptured product design that can be manufactured, maintained, and updated in the future.
This safeguarded an important product line that would otherwise have become obsolete due to component shortages. Beyond solving the immediate problem, the new ECAD files mean the design is once again editable, making it easier to maintain, adapt, and certify in future. The client also reduced their dependency on outdated documentation, lowering risk and increasing flexibility for the years ahead.