Over my 6 years at Athos we constantly pushed the boundaries of existing technologies to develop groundbreaking products quickly and cheaply.  Not only did we develop garments with electronics integrated into them but we release new versions on a schedule closer to fast fashion companies like H&M, than the seasonal schedule of traditional garment retailers like the Gap.  

One of the tricks that enabled us to achieve such a rapid development cycle was emphasizing scrappy prototyping.  The emphasis here is to focus on the end result that you want; and to achieve that by the quickest and cheapest means possible.  Even if that process will not work in production, it will let you test the idea with minimal resources.  

The toaster is a good example; I needed to cure silicone rubber for some tests.  My first thought was to buy a $500+ industrial oven with a 3 week delivery, but why do that when you can buy a $40 toaster oven with 2 day shipping from Amazon?  It worked great!  In fact we eventually ended up with two toaster ovens now in our prototyping area.