Optimize Product Development with Teamcenter

For decades, complexity has been the norm for the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry, and most organizations have learned to navigate it with ingenuity, rigor, and grit. But what’s changed most in recent years is the pace, making PLM for aerospace and defense and modern aerospace PLM software a strategic necessity, not just an engineering tool.

Programs have become more ambitious—not just in scale, but in complexity and integration. Today’s aircraft, spacecraft, and defense platforms are expected to be smarter, more autonomous, and more environmentally responsible, while meeting mission-critical standards for safety, security, and interoperability. Electrification, fly-by-wire systems, AI-enabled decision-making, and digital battle management are no longer emerging technologies—they are rapidly becoming program requirements.

Yet each innovation adds layers of data, interdependency, and verification that must be managed in parallel across multiple teams and tools that often lack proper integration, standardization, or context.

In practice, managing this complexity manually or through isolated systems leads to slow decision-making, rework, and certification or accreditation challenges that ripple through the entire lifecycle. While many A&D organizations have modernized select engineering capabilities (e.g. simulation tools, digital twins, system modeling), these efforts often remain disconnected from the broader product and program infrastructure.

What makes PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) essential isn’t just managing this complexity. It’s turning it into a competitive advantage. And with increasing pressure from regulators, defense ministries, customers, and program timelines, PLM is increasingly seen not just as an engineering tool, but as a core enabler for cross-functional agility, mission assurance, and integrated program delivery.

5 Reasons Why PLM Is Essential for Aerospace & Defense

Let's break down the reasons why PLM has shifted from a support tool to a strategic necessity:

1. Rising Product and System Complexity

Modern A&D platforms now handle integration across hundreds to thousands of system interfaces, spanning across mechanical, electrical, software and mission systems. These aren’t just technical challenges, they’re organizational and systemic as well.

Each domain typically uses its own specialized tools, standards, and processes, making it difficult to manage and validate system-wide changes, particularly when teams rely on manual updates and lack real-time visibility.

A robust aerospace PLM software allows aerospace and defense companies to centralize engineering data, enforce process consistency, and enable real-time collaboration across all domains. This ensures changes are validated early, integration points are understood, and downstream implications are fully visible.

2. Accelerated Development Cycles

It's no secret that building and certifying A&D products is inherently complex. These systems are safety-critical by design, require strict adherence to evolving global regulations (e.g. DO-178C, ARP4754A, ITAR, DFARS, NATO standards, etc.), and they must meet rigorous performance, durability, and operational standards—often across extreme environments.

In addition, certification is a year-long process of exhaustive documentation, iterative testing, and multi-stakeholder validation, whose cost and time investment, in many cases, can exceed the cost of design itself.

At the same time, according to Deloitte, sustained growth in commercial aviation is placing intense pressure on OEMs and suppliers to accelerate design, development, and certification cycles, often compressing timelines by 20–30%.

Modern defense PLM software brings all critical teams (design, simulation, manufacturing, and compliance) into a shared environment where they can collaborate in real time, using consistent, version-controlled data. This unified approach ensures traceability and transparency across the entire lifecycle, allowing aerospace companies to accelerate development without compromising on safety, compliance, or quality standards.

3. Sustainability Demands

Sustainability in A&D isn’t just about SDG compliance. It’s about managing growing expectations from regulators, investors, and OEM customers who demand transparency, verifiability, and measurable action. Lifecycle assessments (LCAs), material passports, and recyclability scores must be tied back to specific components, suppliers, and product versions, which presents a massive data challenge.

Additionally, directives like the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the broader European Green Deal are ramping up expectations for full lifecycle transparency and environmental accountability. For aerospace companies already navigating complex regulations (like REACH, RoHS, ISO 14001, NATO and dual-use compliance), this adds a new layer of pressure to integrate sustainability from the earliest stages of design and development.

PLM systems make this possible by integrating sustainability KPIs directly into product and process workflows. This allows A&D companies to track, quantify, and align engineering and sourcing decisions, supporting PLM for sustainability reporting in aerospace especially when regulatory requirements are evolving, while generating auditable, report-ready ESG data.

4. Digital Transformation Enablement

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s actively reshaping how A&D companies design, test, and manage their products. When integrated with technologies like digital twins, robotics, and smart factory systems, AI can significantly accelerate aerospace development cycles, helping teams uncover insights faster, reduce costly physical prototyping, anticipate risks earlier, and drive intelligent design reuse across multi-domain systems.

However, for AI to deliver on its potential, it requires an environment where data is centralized, structured, and contextual.  This is precisely where PLM becomes indispensable.

With AI, modern PLM systems evolve from static systems of record into dynamic systems of intelligence, providing the structured and connected backbone required to train AI on governed engineering data. They enable the digital thread in aerospace and defense programs and support advanced practices like MBSE, enabling real-time insights for design optimization, sourcing decisions, and production flow simulations. In this way, data becomes trustworthy, accessible, and interoperable across every stage of the lifecycle.

5. Global Supply Chain Complexity

A&D companies depend on vast, multi-tier supplier ecosystems to deliver critical components, subsystems, and increasingly software-driven systems. In today’s environment, where post-pandemic disruptions persist and aircraft programs demand unprecedented levels of customization and integration, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to coordinate design and engineering changes across dispersed suppliers without introducing delays, inconsistencies, or compliance risks.

Add to this the pressures of geopolitical instability, shifting trade alliances, and export controls, and the cost of poor coordination quickly becomes unsustainable.

PLM systems serve as the foundation for PLM supply chain management in aerospace and defense programs, helping manufacturers regain control. They offer centralized, version-controlled platforms for collaboration that support structured approvals, real-time data traceability, and synchronized BOM updates—ensuring that supply chain orchestration scales as complexity grows.

PLM Is the Foundational Layer for Aerospace & Defense Innovation

What started as a "nice-to-have" system for managing engineering data is now becoming a strategic investment, essential for staying competitive in the aerospace industry. According to CIMdata, over 65% of A&D OEMs are actively implementing digital thread strategies, with PLM platforms like Siemens Teamcenter at the heart of these transformations.

Let’s look at some of those examples:

• ‍Bye Aerospace used Siemens Teamcenter and NX to streamline their design and certification process, achieving a 66% reduction in engineering resources required, while accelerating time to compliance. This demonstrates how a unified PLM system can eliminate redundant work and ensure seamless data continuity across the development lifecycle.‍
• Northrop Grumman leveraged Siemens Teamcenter to establish a digital thread across defense programs. By connecting virtual and physical testing workflows, they improved traceability, accelerated certification cycles, and reduced weight in critical subsystems. This shows how Siemens solutions support defense organizations with mission assurance, compliance, and agility in highly regulated environments.

Accelerate Product Development with CLEVR & Siemens Teamcenter in Aerospace & Defense

Siemens Teamcenter for aerospace and defense is one of the most robust and widely adopted PLM systems. As part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, it integrates seamlessly across engineering, manufacturing, and enterprise ecosystems—including ERP, MES, MBSE, and simulation environments. This enables A&D manufacturers to digitize and orchestrate every phase of product development, from concept through certification and into sustainment.

Teamcenter offers:

• Unified, multi-domain data and bill-of-materials (BOM) management
• Cloud-native deployment via Teamcenter X cloud PLM in aerospace and defense for scalability and faster time to value
• Built-in support for MBSE, sustainability metrics tracking, and digital twin enablement
• Secure, role-based collaboration across dispersed design and supplier networks
• Robust change and configuration management tailored to regulatory-intensive programs

At CLEVR, we have seen first-hand how A&D companies scale and future-proof their operations with Teamcenter. With over 30 years of experience implementing PLM in aerospace and defense, we help organizations navigate every stage of the transformation journey—from strategy and planning to system integration, data migration, and long-term support.

Our team specializes in guiding companies through the complexities of integrating Teamcenter into highly customized, multi-system landscapes, especially where legacy tools, compliance obligations, and distributed teams present unique challenges.

Whether you're optimizing traceability, enabling cross-domain collaboration, or unifying design and production workflows, CLEVR ensures that your PLM foundation is built with your needs in mind, embedding resilience, agility, and long-term growth into your operations.

Key Takeaway

The aerospace and defense industry are undergoing a period of rapid transformation, driven by technological disruption, rising regulatory demands, evolving sustainability targets, and increased pressure to bring smarter, more integrated products to market faster.

In this context, where traditional tools and siloed systems no longer meet the demands of modern aerospace programs, PLM for aerospace and defense has emerged as a critical backbone.

From accelerating development cycles and supporting AI adoption, to ensuring traceability across sustainability metrics and global supply chains, PLM enables organizations to manage complexity, drive innovation, and maintain compliance in one connected ecosystem.

At CLEVR, with decades of domain expertise, we help aerospace and defense companies unlock this potential, turning complexity into competitive advantage through smart PLM implementations tailored to their goals. By combining deep Siemens Teamcenter knowledge with agile development expertise, CLEVR helps organizations build secure PLM foundations while developing intuitive and compliant applications.

Whether you're starting your PLM journey or scaling an existing system, our team can advise on best practices, guide your system integration strategy, and support complex migrations, ensuring long-term success and faster ROI.

Get in touch to learn more or schedule a consultation.

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In the manufacturing sector, AI is rapidly becoming the tool that connects the dots between design, production, and maintenance. From design optimization to predictive maintenance, AI is revolutionizing the product lifecycle by enabling smarter, more efficient processes.

But for AI to realize its potential, it needs to be deeply embedded in the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system.

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1. PLM: The Foundation AI Needs to Create Real Value

PLM serves as the central data backbone for product data. Whether it's from design, production, or after-sales service, PLM is the data thread that connects all stages of the product lifecycle. When AI taps into this thread, it can significantly enhance product development and lifecycle management.

For example, AI-powered algorithms can now help optimize designs, making them lighter, cheaper, and stronger, all in one go. These algorithms evaluate multiple parameters, offering new insights and potential product innovations that were previously too complex to calculate manually. The result is a more intelligent, adaptive design process.

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2. Digital Twins & Generative Design: Where AI Supercharges Engineering

A key area where AI adds immense value is through digital twins and generative design. Digital twins allow manufacturers to simulate and monitor products in real-time, creating a digital replica of a physical product. AI models leverage this data to predict and prevent issues, optimizing designs before they even reach production.

Generative design, another AI-powered innovation, enables the creation of thousands of design alternatives based on specific parameters. AI continuously learns from the data, refining these alternatives to create designs that are both efficient and innovative, adapting to real-world conditions.

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3. Beyond Design: AI in Maintenance, Operations & Sustainability

AI isn’t just improving the design phase. It’s transforming how companies maintain and service their products as well.

Predictive maintenance powered by AI allows manufacturers to predict when a machine or part will fail, preventing downtime and reducing costly repairs. AI analyzes data from sensors, identifying patterns and anomalies that indicate potential failures before they occur. This predictive approach helps reduce operational costs and extend the life of machinery and products.

Furthermore, AI is increasingly being integrated into the efforts to improve sustainability and circularity. By optimizing product lifecycles and making it easier to measure and reduce waste, AI offers manufacturers the tools they need to meet ever-growing sustainability demands.

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4. AI as a Service: Bridging the Digital Thread and Business Processes

AI doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It needs to be integrated not only into core systems like PLM but also into the business processes that define how an organization operates. AI as a service within the IT architecture ensures that AI can be deployed across the organization without disrupting core systems.

The real power of AI is realized when it becomes a part of the operational processes of the business. Whether it’s through AI-enabled supply chain resilience, design optimization, or real-time maintenance predictions, AI turns insight into action. This integration ensures that companies are not just experimenting with AI, but leveraging it to create lasting value.

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Making AI Work: Where Architecture Meets Leadership

When AI, PLM & Low Code Work Together

By combining PLM, AI, and low-code platforms, companies can create a dynamic, scalable architecture that supports continuous improvement. AI moves beyond just providing insights, it becomes part of the operational fabric that drives faster, smarter decisions across all stages of the product lifecycle.

In the same way that PLM became the license to innovate for product design and manufacturing, AI is becoming the license to improve and scale operations, offering companies a path to both sustainability and competitive advantage.

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The Human Factor

While AI makes processes smarter and more efficient, it’s crucial to remember that the human element remains essential. AI supports but doesn’t replace human decision-making. Strategic leadership is required to guide AI’s implementation, ensuring it aligns with the business’s overall vision and goals.

AI empowers teams by reducing repetitive tasks, improving decision-making, and offering data-driven insights. But ultimately, it’s the leadership and the people within the organization who make the final decisions, turning AI’s potential into tangible outcomes.

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From complexity to clarity

When PLM meets AI, complexity becomes clarity. AI unlocks value at every stage of the product lifecycle, from design and production to maintenance and sustainability.

By leveraging the full power of AI within a solid PLM framework, companies can move from experimentation to execution, creating long-term value and driving innovation.

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Originally published here.

Digital transformation is no longer a buzzword. It’s happening in real factories today. Siemens has built its Electronics Works Amberg into a flagship digital twin showcase, Bosch is using its Nexeed Smart Factory platform to cut energy use by up to 40% in plants like Homburg, and Tesla’s Gigafactories are redefining automated, software-driven production at scale.  

These examples prove that smart factories are not just visions. They are operating realities delivering measurable results, making it all the more striking that around 80% of manufacturers continue to rely on Excel for production planning.   

For years, studies have deemed spreadsheet-based planning inadequate for modern manufacturing, highlighting it as one of the biggest barriers to digital maturity. So, while they may feel familiar, inexpensive, and somewhat flexible, we have to ask ourselves whether they are truly scalable.  

Can spreadsheets connect to ERP, PLM, IIoT sensors, and meet the interoperability requirements of today’s complex shop floors? 

Why Excel Fails on the Modern Shop Floor 

1. Outdated and disconnected data 

Real-time visibility is now a baseline requirement for competitive manufacturing, especially in industries with fast-moving supply chains such as automotive and electronics. Yet spreadsheets can only deliver static snapshots, leaving production teams to make critical decisions based on yesterday’s data rather than the actual conditions on the shop floor. Gartner has linked this gap directly to slower response times, inventory mismatches, and misaligned planning cycles.  

In practice, when a critical part is delayed, production managers cannot easily reroute orders to alternative lines, and planners risk pushing components through that may already be outdated by the time they reach final assembly. 

2. High error rates and version chaos 

94% of spreadsheets contain errors, a statistic that resonates strongly on the shop floor. From a manufacturer’s perspective, even a minor miscalculation in a formula or an outdated file version can quickly cascade into serious operational consequences: thousands of parts produced to the wrong specification, production lines halted for rework, or warehouses filling up with unsellable excess stock.  

In industries such as automotive and aerospace, where tolerances are tight and supply chains are global, these spreadsheet-driven errors not only waste resources but also erode customer trust and strain already thin margins. 

3. Scaling pains across sites 

Excel might suffice for a single factory, but it quickly collapses when operations span multiple plants or geographies where coordination and synchronization are vital. IDC research highlights that manufacturers depending on spreadsheets at scale face significantly higher operational costs, slower time-to-market, and reduced supply chain agility.  

Gartner has made similar observations in its MES research, emphasizing that spreadsheet-driven planning becomes unmanageable once production expands globally, underscoring that spreadsheet-driven planning not only inflates costs but also undermines the responsiveness needed to meet dynamic customer demand across international markets. 

4. Compliance and traceability gaps 

In heavily regulated sectors such as pharmaceuticals or aerospace, failing to track every batch, lot, or serialized component can result in costly audits, production halts, fines, or even forced recalls. Excel provides no reliable audit trail, making it nearly impossible to meet the strict requirements of authorities like the FDA or EASA.  

Organizations that embrace digital transformation can cut audit preparation times dramatically—sometimes from weeks to days—by digitizing records, automating traceability, and embedding quality checks directly into their production workflows. Digital automation makes it possible to ensure full process visibility, maintain reliable audit trails, and accelerate approvals. 

5. Inability to keep up with Industry 4.0 demands 

Modern manufacturing increasingly relies on lot sizes of one, mass customization, and rapid product changeovers. Static spreadsheets cannot adapt to this level of variability and speed, leaving planners unable to adjust schedules or resource allocations in time to match shifting demand. 

By contrast, digitally automated processes enable real-time adjustments to production lines—whether that means reconfiguring a line for a customized vehicle order, balancing throughput in electronics assembly, or accelerating consumer goods launch. This level of agility has become a fundamental competitive requirement for manufacturers across all sectors. 

From Spreadsheets to Smart Automation: Why MES Is the Next Step 

Manufacturers need more than incremental fixes. They need a step change, and this is where Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) come in.  

MES platforms bridge the gap between the planning layer (ERP) and the shop floor, providing real-time visibility, orchestrating workflows, and embedding quality and compliance into daily operations. With MES, companies can synchronize production schedules across sites, capture and analyze live machine data, ensure full traceability for audits, and rapidly adjust to shifting customer demand—all things Excel can never achieve. 

Amongst the solutions available, Siemens Opcenter is consistently positioned by Gartner and IDC as a leader in MES, recognized by industry analysts and practitioners as one of the strongest offerings in the market. Let’s dive deeper into how companies can leverage its capabilities to strengthen operations and stay competitive. 

Siemens Opcenter: Bringing MES to Life 

Siemens Opcenter is a unified portfolio of manufacturing operations management (MOM) solutions designed to support manufacturers in their digital transformation journey. Part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, it enables companies to digitally plan, orchestrate, and continuously improve production and quality operations, to help them make higher-quality products faster and at lower cost than competitors.  

Opcenter’s core strengths lie in its ability to unify disparate systems and close the loop between design and execution, supporting manufacturers who need continuous improvement through analytics and digital twin capabilities. More specifically, Opcenter offers: 

Real-time data integration 

Opcenter unifies shop floor and enterprise systems, allowing manufacturers to monitor actual performance, detect issues immediately, and respond instantly to disruptions. This integration improves reliability, boosts efficiency, and ensures decisions are based on live production data rather than static reports. A great example is The Absolut Company, which implemented Opcenter Execution and APS to automate production lines and gained full visibility and control across its operations. 

Predictive planning and scheduling 

With advanced analytics, Opcenter enables companies to digitally plan and orchestrate operations, optimize capacity, reduce downtime, and increase on-time delivery. By comparing as-planned and as-is data, planners can continuously fine-tune schedules to keep production aligned with demand. As such, Opcenter can give manufacturers a clear edge in responsiveness and resource utilization, ensuring they can adapt production to real-world changes with speed and accuracy. 

Compliance and traceability 

Opcenter automates record keeping, tracks every component, and embeds quality checks into workflows. This ensures reliable audit trails and makes regulatory compliance a seamless part of daily operations, making it a critical tool for companies operating in highly regulated environments. By lowering costs associated with manual inspections and documentation, companies that adopt Opcenter can automate records, ensure full traceability, and meet regulatory standards more efficiently. 

Digital twin and integration with PLM, ERP, and automation 

Acting as the real-time layer that connects PLM to automation, Opcenter helps manufacturers to link design, planning, and execution in one continuous loop. This digital twin approach allows smarter decision-making, faster innovation cycles, and continuous closed-loop improvement across the entire lifecycle, activating what Siemens describes as the comprehensive Digital Twin. 

CLEVR: Your Trusted Partner in MES Digital Transformation 

As a trusted Siemens partner, CLEVR brings more than just technical implementation skills. We combine deep expertise in MES and MOM with years of experience guiding organizations across industries through digital transformation projects. 

Our role is not to simply deploy software, but to ensure the MES and MOM solutions fit the way your teams actually work, aligning technology with business goals and operational realities. And in a fast‑changing world, companies will need a trusted advisor who understands their industry and can guide them through bold decisions with confidence.  

Whether you are operating in aerospace and defense, energy and utilities, or any other industry, adopting Opcenter and smart automation is no longer optional. It is a strategic necessity and CLEVR brings industry‑specific MES and MOM expertise to help you fully leverage Opcenter’s capabilities to improve efficiency, quality, and agility.  

Contact us to learn more.