Reducing product development cycle times without increasing risk

Both market forces and the regulatory climate are causing companies to seek ways to accelerate the product development process. Unfortunately, shortening development times usually increases the risk level that a company is forced to live with. Historically, R&D has exercised the role of risk manager in corporations by testing prospective products extensively over long times and under varied conditions to insure that there will be no significant failures, once commercially introduced. Today, this style of risk management is untenable - it simply takes too long and costs too much, without delivering commensurate success. The field of reliability theory offers guidance on how to better understand the sources of risk, and how to quickly assess their magnitude, all on a time scale that allows far more rapid innovation than currently enjoyed in the coatings industry. Better yet, it offers insight on how to accomplish this without increasing the total risk experienced by a company.