Today's new business development success is defined by the ability to be the first to deliver a product to the market. After successful introduction, there are two means in which to maintain the market share, manufacturing a differentiated product and/ or manufacturing that product at the lowest possible conversion cost. Speed based research is a critical link in the chain from concept ideation to commercial success. Speed based research requires a number of tools to facilitate product research and development. One tool still vital to product development is the pilot plant. Typically, the pilot plant has been used to manufacture a small volume of product for customer evaluation and market development. The Dow Chemical Company has made prudent use of its pilot plants to successfully launch new products such as VERSIFY^TM, ENGAGE^TM, and NORDEL IP^TM to name a few. Fortunately, this is not the sole utility of a well designed pilot plant. Advances in construction technology allow the industry to build world scale chemical plants and take advantage of economies of scale like never before. As a result, research efforts today are as focused on process development and optimization as product development. One can easily surmise that a world scale manufacturing plant is an inappropriate scale at which to conduct even minor product or process research programs. The economic impact of this type of business strategy could be devastating to success. The most appropriate resource for this effort is a pilot plant. The importance of this asset is exacerbated as the scale of the manufacturing plant increases. Manufacturing scale implementation risks are significantly reduced with proper pilot scale research. The Dow Chemical Company has numerous examples of how engineers have employed pilot plant research efforts to reduce manufacturing scale risk while maximizing business success. Today's pilot scale facilities are often hundreds of times smaller in scale than the manufacturing plant. Therefore, it is more important than ever to fully appreciate the technology differences as a result of scale. Pilot plant design details are more important than ever. Fortunately, the tools accessible to the engineer are more advanced than in the past. Computer aided design tools such as computational fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer calculation algorithms, pump, heat exchanger, pressure vessel, and other unit operation design tools allow the engineer to more accurately design a plant and evaluate the impact of unit operation performance as a function of scale. The net result is the ability to construct a small scale pilot facility that closely matches the manufacturing plant performance and minimize implementation risks. Pilot plant design and construction details are not complete with the process design. It is even more important that the plant is designed for safe and efficient interaction with the operating technicians. Process control and instrumentation tools at the engineer's disposal allow plants to be built with more safety protocols and more efficient and intuitive process controllers. Tools are available to evaluate the inherent safety of a process design to the surrounding people and environment. Tools include process safety reviews, ergonomic evaluations, relief design tools, fire and explosive index calculations, chemical exposure index calculations, chemical compatibility and reactivity reviews, environmental health reviews, and hazards of operability reviews. These tools specifically identify safety and/ or environmental hazards, affording the engineer the ability to modify the design prior to construction, minimizing risk to the safety of personnel and/ or the environment while allowing the engineer to adequately address risks that are inherent to the technology. Often designs include safety instrumented systems that operate as stand alone systems or in conjunction with the process control system to protect plant personnel and the surrounding environment. Pilot plants will continue to play a pivotal role in product and process research. As a result, it is imperative that the engineering team allocate the appropriate resources to properly design and construct a pilot facility. This strategy will allow operations personnel to safely manufacture products for market development and deliver the high quality information required for implementation at the manufacturing scale.