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SLM-Works

Service

Custom SLM development

Pain

Most production workloads do not need the largest public model - they need a smaller one that fits latency and cost targets, respects your data rules, and behaves predictably on your tasks.

Delivery

We scope datasets and evaluation gates with you, then train or adapt models and compress them through distillation, quantization, pruning, and PEFT/LoRA where appropriate - so what ships matches what you agreed to measure.

Differentiator

Engagements are built around acceptance criteria and artifacts your ML and platform teams can operate - not a one-off notebook export or a generic checkpoint rename.

Problems this service addresses

How delivery maps to the SLM pipeline

The same four stages we use on the homepage - here in context for custom model work. Select a step for detail and where to read more on this site.

Custom SLM

Pipeline stages

Select a pipeline stage to read a short summary. Four steps from data through deployment.

What we deliver

Three pillars that usually appear in sequence or in parallel, depending on your baseline model and infrastructure.

Data engineering and curation

We help you define what “good” looks like for your use case: source systems, labeling or weak-supervision strategies, PII and retention policies, train/validation splits, and leakage checks. Deliverables typically include dataset specs, quality reports, and reproducible extraction pipelines aligned with your governance workflow - not a one-time CSV dump.

Figure: sources are normalized into a governed training pack with documented splits and policy checks.

Model compression

Distillation transfers behavior from a larger teacher (often run privately in your boundary) into a student that matches latency targets. Quantization and pruning reduce memory and compute where metrics allow. We document which techniques were applied, what accuracy moved, and how to re-run compression when baselines change.

Figure: distillation from a private teacher into a student, then optional quantization and pruning under evaluation gates.

PEFT and LoRA

When full fine-tunes are unnecessary, parameter-efficient methods adapt a base checkpoint with smaller update sets - useful for fast iterations and controlled promotion paths. We specify adapter formats, merge strategies, and how your serving stack should load them.

Figure: small adapter matrices train while most base weights stay frozen; merge and serving rules are explicit in handover.

Deliverables checklist

Exact artifacts are named in the statement of work; this list is a typical superset for planning conversations.

Who it is for

Strong fit

  • Teams with a defined task (support triage, extraction, classification, constrained generation) and measurable quality targets
  • Organizations that can designate data owners and approve access paths for training data
  • Groups ready to run inference on GPUs or inference stacks they operate (or co-design with us)

Usually not a fit (yet)

  • Open-ended “replace Google for everything” mandates without scoped pilots
  • No owner for data quality, retention, or model promotion
  • Expectations of zero engineering involvement after handover

Ready to scope a pilot or PoC?

We align metrics, data access, and infra before proposing a concrete plan.

Request a PoC

Frequently asked questions

Practical answers for technical buyers; validate resale, SLA, and capacity wording with legal and sales before public launch and paid campaigns.

What is the difference between a custom SLM and fine-tuning a public model?
Fine-tuning adapts weights (or adapters) on top of an existing checkpoint. A custom SLM engagement usually includes that adaptation plus explicit work on data curation, evaluation gates, and compression so the resulting model meets latency, cost, and residency targets - not only a new LoRA on top of a generic API.
How do you handle sensitive or regulated data?
We align on where data may live, who can access it, retention limits, and audit expectations before training starts. Work typically stays in environments your security team approves; exact controls are documented in the statement of work. Nothing on this page replaces your legal or DPA process.
Which compression techniques do you use?
Common options include knowledge distillation from a larger teacher, post-training quantization, structured or unstructured pruning where metrics allow, and smaller architectures when re-training from scratch is justified. The mix depends on your accuracy floor and serving hardware - we do not apply a fixed recipe to every client.
How long does a first delivery usually take?
Timelines depend on data readiness, evaluation complexity, and infra access. Indicative ranges are summarized on the About page; every schedule is confirmed after discovery. This site does not quote fixed durations.
What do we need to provide from our side?
A product or use-case owner, access to representative data (or agreement on how to collect it), someone who can approve governance decisions, and inference owners who will run or integrate the model. Optional: existing MLOps hooks for CI and promotion.
Can you integrate with our existing MLOps stack?
Yes, when it reduces friction for your teams. We document how artifacts map to your registries, containers, and deployment pipelines rather than forcing a greenfield toolchain.
What happens after a proof of concept?
If metrics meet the agreed gate, we plan production hardening: monitoring, versioning, rollback, and optional scale-out. If not, we document gaps and options - smaller scope, different data, or a different architectural path such as private LLM first.

Discuss data boundaries, evaluation, and rollout with our team

Start with a discovery call or a scoped PoC - see the contact page for both options.