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UK

Extended Development Teams for Manufacturing

Flexible developer, QA, DevOps and BA capacity that plugs into your manufacturing engineering team. Scale production efficiency software, ERP systems and legacy integrations without permanent hiring costs.

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Trusted by enterprises, scaleups and startups

  • British Gas
  • Lafarge
  • NHS
  • cinch
  • Bridgestone
  • Dole

WHAT YOU GET

Built around how your business works

  • QA and DevOps specialists who understand production workflows and system uptime demands
  • Scale your team without fixed payroll costs during peak development cycles
  • Legacy ERP and manufacturing system integration expertise across multiple platforms
  • Access developers who can work across your internal processes and existing codebases
  • Nearshore team model with UK/Spain/Ukraine presence for timezone flexibility and cost control
Book a free discovery call

Manufacturing software sits between your shop floor and business operations. When you're running ERP upgrades, building production management systems, or integrating legacy platforms, you need developers who grasp both the technical layer and the operational reality. Hiring permanent engineers for surge work creates fixed overhead that disappears once the project ends. An extended team model lets you plug in specialists for QA, DevOps, and backend development exactly when inventory accuracy and production efficiency demand it. Your internal engineering managers stay in control. We add capacity, not overhead.

01

Why Manufacturing Teams Need Extended Capacity

02

From Legacy Integration to Modern Production Systems

Most manufacturing environments run a patchwork: decades-old ERP instances, newer MES platforms, custom integrations, and third-party tooling that nobody quite documented. You can't rip and replace. Our team works within that reality. We've built development capacity around legacy system integration, ERP customization, and production management system enhancements. Your CTOs and IT directors get specialists who don't treat your existing architecture as obsolete. They get developers fluent in how data flows between your warehouse, your shop floor, and your finance stack. That's not generic software development. It's manufacturing-specific.

Flexibility Without Friction

Extended teams work best when they feel like your team. Our developers, QAs, and DevOps engineers report to your engineering manager's roadmap. We use your tools, follow your standards, and integrate with your sprint cycles. You're not managing a vendor relationship for tactical work. You're expanding capacity. The model works across UK and nearshore locations (Spain and Ukraine), so you can mix timezone alignment with cost efficiency. You hire for 3 months or 3 years. You scale up during platform migrations. You adjust when priorities shift. IT directors and engineering managers see the difference in their own hiring and burnout metrics within the first quarter.

CASE STUDIES

How we've transformed enterprises, SMEs and startups

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ABOUT US

Read our story

Founded in 2007 as a dedicated IT consultancy, Evolved Ideas has grown into a team of over 100 professionals, with a head office in Leicester and development hubs in Eastern Europe and Spain.

Read more
19+
Years in business
200+
Successful projects
100+
Developers, designers and analysts
100+
Satisfied clients
  • Clutch Top Software Developers Leicester 2024
  • Clutch Global Fall 2024
  • UK Fintech Awards 2021 — Winner
  • UK Digital Technology Leaders Awards 2018

WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY

The team at Evolved Ideas work with us as extended team members, and very much as part of our team. They have just completed a major milestone in our development, going live with our new loan management platform, and we couldn't be happier.

Kate Kennedy

OUR EXPERTISE

What we build

Over 17 years building custom software and mobile applications, and leveraging AI and ML to build the software you'll need next.

See it in the case studies
  • SaaS applications
  • Web-based portals
  • Custom B2B software
  • Native iOS applications
  • Native Android applications
  • Cross-platform mobile apps
  • White-label software
  • AI integration
  • Machine Learning

LOCAL INSIGHT

Working with businesses in the UK

Manufacturing in the UK faces acute pressure on legacy system modernization while maintaining production uptime. CTOs managing ERP implementations or production management systems often struggle to balance core team focus against the gravitational pull of legacy support. An extended team model solves this: your permanent engineers stay on architecture and innovation, while dedicated QA, DevOps, and development specialists handle the integration work, testing cycles, and ongoing tweaks that production efficiency demands. This is especially valuable in manufacturing where downtime is measured in lost output, and IT staff augmentation that understands both the business logic and the technical debt of older platforms becomes a practical necessity, not a luxury.

Where our teams sit

  • LeicesterHead office, UK delivery
  • Gran CanariaEvolved Ideas Spain
  • KyivEngineering hub
Meet the team

OUR PROVEN PROCESS

From first call to ongoing support

Our process has guided startups, scaleups and enterprises from concept to reality, and continues after launch.

  1. 01

    Discovery

    A free 30-minute consultation followed by a stakeholder workshop, where we listen to your challenges, validate assumptions and build an outside-in view of your situation.

  2. 02

    Plan & design

    We scope the project, define milestones and deliverables, then research your market, wireframe the UX and prototype the UI so the direction is agreed before a line of code.

  3. 03

    Build

    We assemble your dedicated team, establish reporting and work in iterative Scrum sprints, delivering a working MVP or proof of concept you can test with real users.

  4. 04

    Launch & support

    We ship, sign off, and keep your product current through our support service or a permanent extended team as your business evolves.

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OUR SOLUTIONS

We build solutions for your business challenges

Technology is more than just code — it's a tool for solving real business challenges. Whichever route fits your stage, the same team delivers it.

Bespoke Software

With your long-term goals in mind, we help you choose the technology you need and develop a tech roadmap based on industry trends, emerging tech and your business requirements.

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MVP Ideation & Validation

We have years of experience building proof of concepts and MVPs. We will take you from testing viability to building an MVP to validate your hypotheses.

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Application Support

Tier 1 customer support, Tier 2 technical support and Tier 3 development support for applications and legacy software, delivered by our engineering teams.

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Development Teams

If you need to build an IT team from zero or need staff augmentation, we can build the team you need — developers, designers, analysts and even fractional CTOs.

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FAQ

Questions we hear most often

Still unsure how this would work for your business?

Ask us directly
How do extended development teams fit with our existing engineering structure?

Your engineering manager sets the roadmap and priorities. Extended team members report to the same sprint cycles, use your tools, and integrate into daily standups and code reviews. They plug directly into your internal team without requiring separate project management layers. Most CTOs find the transition invisible within the first two weeks.

Can you handle legacy ERP systems and older tech stacks?

Yes. Manufacturing environments rarely run green-field tech. We've worked on legacy ERP platforms, older MES systems, and custom integrations built over decades. Your development backlog probably includes work on systems nobody fully documented. Our team specializes in that reality, not in dismissing it.

What happens when we need to scale the team up or down?

You set the pace. Ramp up during major platform migrations or production system upgrades. Scale back when the work finishes. Unlike permanent hiring, extended capacity adjusts to your actual demand. Most manufacturing clients adjust their team size 2-3 times per year based on project cycles.

How do you ensure production system reliability during active development?

QA and DevOps specialists work as part of the extended team, not as afterthoughts. Testing is built into your sprint cycles. Deployment pipelines, staging environments, and rollback procedures are locked down before feature work starts. Uptime standards apply to every piece of code your team touches.

What's the difference between extending our team and hiring a development vendor?

Vendors deliver finished projects. Extended teams become part of your permanent engineering structure. Your engineering managers drive technical decisions. We execute them. The accountability and knowledge stay internal. When the team member moves on or the project ends, your documentation and systems remain yours.

Can extended team members work across multiple projects?

It depends on your structure. Some manufacturing clients assign developers to one production system or ERP modernization for 6-12 months. Others rotate QA and DevOps specialists across parallel workstreams. Your engineering director decides allocation. The key is that extended team members work under your management, not ours.

EXPLORE MORE

Related solutions

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NEXT STEPS…

Ready to bring your ideas to life?

Book a free 30-minute discovery call with our team — we'll understand your objectives and advise how bespoke software, MVP development, or an extended team can help your business.

Book a free discovery call