In this whitepaper the author reviews how leveraging in-system diagnostics during the prototype phase can assist engineers in overcoming the challenges design complexity exerts on product development, manufacturing, and overall time-to-market. Readers will gain insight into how they can replace today’s ad-hoc board level verification approaches with an ordered methodology that will enable designers to automatically validate their own hardware designs, optimize system performance, and simplify the process of integrating new hardware with new software. The paper concludes with a review of case studies that will provide valuable insight to help designers insulate against risks that are derailing product introductions from some of the largest, most respected companies in the electronics business.