Risk analysis and management of projects with high innovation content

The ability to innovate products and introduce them on the market over a short period of time is one of the main competition advantages in the current turbulent climate. In the field of rail vehicles, when deliveries are often made in small series, the development is usually directly incorporated into the projects with deliveries to a specific customer, which brings along a number of risks. The paper discusses risk analysis and management in this type of innovation projects with the necessity to comply with the stipulated contractual deadlines. Concurrent preparing and executing of several projects results in the need to be able to deal with risks arising from sharing limited resources in the development, the technical preparation of production and the production itself. Risks might also arise in relation to the suppliers and partners that participate in the development. Attention has been paid, in particular, to initial risk analyses when it is essential to check risks for various project options available, in view of other projects running or of other potential projects, and to decide on the conditions of entering into a particular project.