ABSTRACT
Technology development programs are critical to increasing the capability of emerging and deployed systems and, in the case of private companies, to long-term growth and profits. The success of research and development programs has inherent uncertainty; therefore, potential return of these projects is riskier than for well-established programs. The program implementation plan must include a process to track and assess the risk of the new technology development throughout the life cycle. The risk of incorporating a new technology in a program is tracked by the program’s systems engineering process to ensure that the realized benefits of the technology will not have an adverse impact on the program’s budget and schedule. Risk management is particularly important for micro-and nanotechnologies (MNTs), which are complex
systems. And the requirement for developing interfaces to adapt MNTs for human use adds further complexity in the development of MNTs and complicates assessing programmatic risk.
