In a major expansion to its business, TRaC has announced the launch of its Early Stage Qualification ("ESQ") Division. ESQ offers an innovative model of engagement for TRaC's clients, both existing and new: operating as an Engineering Consultancy, it will work closely with design teams at – as the name suggests – an early stage in product development cycles, to build-in the attributes that will be needed to ensure first-time-success when projects reach the testing, approvals and certification phase.

"It has always been the case," says TRaC CEO Mark Heaven, "that you cannot test compliance into a product: it has to be designed-in from the start. But in many companies, established practices or budgetary structures mean that thinking about how approvals will be secured, and standards-compliance achieved, starts too late in the design process. TRaC ESQ will give our clients the tools to remedy this situation."

Launching the ESQ Division of TRaC formalises and develops what has been a growing part of the company's activities for some time; provision of engineering consultancy services prior to TRaC's main activity of testing and approval. In today's product design environment, and with ever-increasing pressure for shorter time-to-market, companies must approach the certification phase of a new product's development cycle with complete confidence that they have followed best-practices to achieve a smooth transition to market.

TRaC ESQ will provide Consultancy in the pre-test stages of design, making available a depth of expertise on optimising the route to first-time-success in approvals testing that few client companies have the resources to maintain in-house. Mark Heaven continues, "To be clear, TRaC is not about to enter the Design Consultancy arena; product design, and optimising products' functional specifications, remains entirely the province of our customers' design teams. What we will add will be methodologies – the ESQ Philosophy, you might say – that we have refined over many years of testing virtually every class of technology-based product. The benefits for our clients will not be limited to securing a first-time-right test cycle for individual projects: we will help them embed those same methodologies into their own processes, to shorten time-to-market in future projects."

ESQ will focus on assisting clients with specific aspects of their product design and route to market; those affecting Safety, Reliability, and Radio/Telecoms Standards Interoperability. TRaC is the largest provider in the UK of Test and Approval services: from that expertise comes a breadth and depth of knowledge about how to shape products that will meet safety standards, shrug off environmental stresses, and conform to the requirements of international communications bodies. This powerful combination of comprehensive testing services, together with associated – but functionally separate – pre-test Consultancy represents a completely new offering in this sector.

TRaC – and, now, ESQ – has delegates and representatives who sit on many key standards bodies and industry committees, and who participate in the processes that shape current and emerging standards and regulations. Consultancy with ESQ will give engineering teams access to this unparalleled resource, at the time their design teams need it most.