Editing Prototype (section)

== Characteristics and limitations of prototypes ==
[[Image:PL Beskid106 car.jpg|thumb|right|A prototype of the [[Poland|Polish]] economy [[hatchback]] [[car]] [[Beskid (car)|Beskid 106]] designed in the 1980s]]
Engineers and prototyping specialists seek to understand the limitations of prototypes to exactly simulate the characteristics of their intended design.

Prototypes represent some compromise from the final production design. This is due to the skill and choices of the designer(s), and the inevitable inherent limitations of a prototype. Due to differences in materials, processes and design fidelity, it is possible that a prototype may fail to perform acceptably although the production design may have been sound. Conversely, prototypes may perform acceptably but the production design and outcome may prove unsuccessful.

In general, it can be expected that individual prototype costs will be substantially greater than the final production costs due to inefficiencies in materials and processes. Prototypes are also used to revise the design for the purposes of [[cost reduction|reducing costs]] through optimization and refinement.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Gschwind|first1=M.|last2=Salapura|first2=V.|last3=Maurer|first3=D.|date=April 2001|title=FPGA prototyping of a RISC processor core for embedded applications|journal=IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems|volume=9|issue=2|pages=241–250|doi=10.1109/92.924027|issn=1063-8210}}</ref>

It is possible to use prototype testing to reduce the risk that a design may not perform as intended, however prototypes generally cannot eliminate all risk.  

Building the full design is often expensive and can be time-consuming, especially when repeated several times—building the full design, figuring out what the problems are and how to solve them, then building another full design. As an alternative, [[rapid prototyping]] or [[rapid application development]] techniques are used for the initial prototypes, which implement part, but not all, of the complete design. This allows designers and manufacturers to rapidly and inexpensively test the parts of the design that are most likely to have problems, solve those problems, and then build the full design.