Visit PTC at the Paris Air Show

Connect with PTC executives this June 16-22 at the world’s largest aerospace event, the International Paris Air Show.

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Next-Gen Solutions for Aerospace and Defense

Discover how PTC solutions empower the aerospace and defense industry to accelerate R&D, streamline production, and enhance mission readiness—ensuring government and industry stakeholders have the advanced capabilities to excel in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Propelling the aerospace and defense industry to new frontiers


From unmanned autonomous vehicles to new and replacement aircraft, the demand for innovative aerospace and defense (A&D) products is growing significantly—with no signs of slowing down.

To remain at the forefront of the competition and operate at the speed of relevance, A&D manufacturers need to ramp up production, increase the pace of innovation, and work and collaborate more efficiently throughout the extended enterprise.

At PTC, we’re helping leading A&D manufacturers tackle these challenges with a digital thread of actionable, interconnected product data. For decades, PTC has been helping customers manage some of the most strategic and highly secured systems in the world—from initial design and development to manufacturing, maintenance, service, and retirement.

Challenges facing aerospace and defense manufacturers

Navigating complex compliance demands

A&D manufacturers operate within some of the strictest regulatory frameworks in the world from export controls, like EAR and ITAR, to digital engineering with DoDI 5000.97 and cybersecurity mandates like CMMC 2.0. Keeping pace with evolving standards while maintaining traceability across the global supply chain is critical. Failure to comply can result in expensive penalties, program delays, and missed opportunities. It’s imperative that tools like real-time auditability, secure data management, and digitalization are deployed effectively to manage regulatory risk.

Speeding innovation to the field

Emerging threats and competitive pressure require faster innovation cycles. A&D leaders must accelerate design, development, and production without compromising quality or compliance. Advantage hinges on shortening time to field, whether delivering a next-gen airliner, a stealth fighter, or a commercial space solution. Integrated digital engineering, model-based systems engineering (MBSE), real-time collaboration, and a complete digital thread all help bridge traditional gaps between R&D, production, operations, and sustainment.

Accelerating production demands

A manufacturing renaissance is underway in aerospace and defense as global fleets modernize and expand. But traditional production systems are under considerable strain as a result of rising demand. Manufacturers need to scale operations as they work to manage quality, volatile supply chain dynamics, and labor challenges. Connected factory solutions, workflow automation, and smart manufacturing technologies are helping enterprises get the right information to the shop floor and across the supply chain when it’s needed. These initiatives ramp up capacity and improve agility without losing control of costs or quality.

Burning down record backlogs

OEMs in both aerospace and defense are grappling with contractual backlogs running at historic highs. Scaling production alone won’t deliver on these commitments. Success requires smarter change management, supply chain visibility, and better integration of engineering, manufacturing, and other disciplines. Without seamless digital collaboration and whole-lifecycle continuity, backlog-burndown initiatives can risk delivery delays, cost overruns, and damage to the most valuable asset of all—customer relationships.

Ensuring asset and mission readiness

Operational readiness is non-negotiable in aerospace and defense. Whether commercial fleets, military aircraft, ground vehicles, or space systems, availability must be guaranteed. Manufacturers and service providers need to advance and support predictive maintenance, responsive parts logistics, and real-time visibility into asset health. PLM solutions, digital twins, and AI-powered service optimization will all play critical roles in maintaining readiness.

Integrating enterprise systems for collaboration

Information siloes impede progress. Today—and in A&D in particular—engineering, manufacturing, and service teams must collaborate across disciplines, organizations, and geographies to keep pace with the demands of the industry. By integrating PLM, ERP, ALM, MRO, and other systems into a cohesive digital thread, stakeholders can unlock more fully informed decision-making, stronger quality control, and new levels of agility in program execution.

Competition from defense upstarts

Despite decades of incumbency and undeniable ability to manufacture at scale, many A&D industry incumbents are being challenged by non-traditional defense industry competitors. These new players, unburdened by entrenched processes, can leverage firm fixed-price contracts, rapid prototyping, and flexible business models to deliver faster, and often at lower costs. Established players must respond by adopting more agile processes, committing to digital transformation, and deploying significant resources to fuel the kind of innovation that can outmatch the disruptors.

Unmatched growth opportunities across sea, air, land, and space domains

Space systems

In the quickly growing space exploration sector, technological advancements are reshaping the landscape. The reduction in launch and product development costs, driven by innovations like booster reuse and vertical integration, is transforming the industry. Meanwhile, increased investment in R&D is fueling further progress. With the market growing to an estimated $1.8 trillion by 2035, the opportunities are vast. Are your digital strategies ready for takeoff?

Naval systems

The military shipbuilding and submarine market is poised for significant growth, with projections reaching $126 billion by 2034. As blue water navies expand their fleets, maintaining ships in forward-deployed locations with allied nations becomes a top priority. Collaborative efforts among allied militaries are driving advancements in submarines, AI, and unmanned systems. With these developments on the horizon, are your digital strategies ready to set sail?

Ground vehicles

Over the last hundred years of mechanized warfare, the impulse for rapid innovation has been the difference between mission success and failure. Today, counter UAS capabilities, uncrewed ground vehicles, and new materials for survivability have become key factors in the market, which is anticipated to grow to $67 billion by 2032. With recent emphasis on overseas drawdowns, though, competition for long-term contracts is intensifying. How are you carving out a lasting competitive advantage?

Airframes

Over the past several years, technology for supersonic passenger jets and eVTOLs has been in a quiet state of development. But as these firms move from design to testing and production, the wave they will generate will be felt across the industry, which is expected to reach $545 billion by 2034. With waves of transformation coming at an increasing pace, does your organization have what it takes to soar above the competition? Explore Airframes

The digital revolution in A&D

Digital transformation is revolutionizing aerospace and defense. AI-driven technologies, cloud platforms, digital twins, and smart factory strategies are accelerating innovation, streamlining production, and igniting breakthroughs in speed, quality, and operational and mission readiness.

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How are leading aerospace and defense companies using PTC solutions to drive value?

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Lawrence Livermore National Lab
Boeing
General Electric

Lufthansa Technik

Learn how Lufthansa Technik integrated and streamlined processes from engineering to manufacturing and service, ensuring data accessibility and enhancing efficiency across the organization.

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NASA

Learn about NASA's journey toward digital engineering transformation and the requisite strategy they are implementing to realize all of the potential benefits.

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Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Discover how LLNL's National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved a fusion breakthrough using PLM and Creo to manage over 3.5 million components and 750,000 unique part designs.

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Boeing

Learn how Boeing Global Services meets demanding inventory needs and keeps customer satisfaction a top priority.

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GE Aviation

Learn how GE Aviation’s On Wing Support exceeded service revenue goals while maximizing efficiency and productivity.

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Solutions for aerospace and defense

Speed up R&D

To achieve the rapid pace of innovation required for the industry to move faster, product development teams need to adopt agile processes that compress timelines and reduce costs. PTC’s portfolio of integrated digital engineering solutions enables a modular approach to product development and systems engineering, with OSLC connectivity between PTC tools, and with third-party tools.

Comply with standards, policies, and regulations

The increasing complexity of aerospace and defense systems is making it harder to ensure compliance with industry standards, policies, and regulations such as FAA, ISO, ITAR, DO178C, DO254, S1000D, and S3000L. PTC’s solutions enable product development teams to integrate compliance into the development process as early as possible with a centralized repository for requirements that enables traceability, visibility, management, and auditability on project artifacts.

Streamline collaboration

Efficient collaboration is mission critical for delivering outcomes that enable aerospace and defense leaders to win. With open architecture and OSLC connectivity, PTC solutions connect stakeholders across the extended enterprise to break down silos, streamline workflows, and ensure data continuity across departments, functions, and enterprise systems.

Manage product complexity and variability

Aerospace and defense products have become increasingly complex with high levels of variability and customization across software and hardware components. Model-based product development can help overcome these challenges by streamlining development processes, managing configurations and variants more effectively, and ensuring that real-time, standardized information is integrated across the entire product lifecycle.

Ramp up production

To burn down backlogs and meet the surging demand for next-gen defense systems, commercial aircraft, and the rapidly growing space sector, manufacturers need to ramp up production while reducing rework, nonconformities, and operating costs. Our PLM-centric approach to manufacturing streamlines the production process by connecting the production environment to the enterprise digital thread, so your teams can work concurrently to bring high-quality products to market faster.

Improve mission readiness

Mission readiness is based on the availability and effectiveness of equipment, personnel, logistics, training, and intelligence. PTC’s portfolio of service lifecycle management solutions helps aerospace and defense leaders improve asset and mission readiness by facilitating efficient maintenance processes, enabling digital collaboration, and optimizing logistics support, so mission critical equipment is available and operational when its needed.

PTC technologies that support aerospace and defense success

Explore how PTC technologies are helping solve critical business challenges in the aerospace and defense sector and enabling our customers to advance at the speed of relevance.

Computer-aided design (CAD)

Solve your unique product development challenges with robust on-prem and innovative SaaS CAD solutions.

Product lifecycle management (PLM)

Orchestrate workflows, speed new capability insertion, innovate with product development, improve asset uptime and lower support costs with PLM for digital transformation.

Application lifecycle management (ALM)

Unify requirements, risk, and test management with agile engineering capabilities to accelerate delivery of high-quality software.

Service lifecycle management (SLM)

Optimize after-sales service operations to ensure mission readiness and peak performance for aerospace and defense assets. Grow your service business, maximize customer uptime, and maintain compliance with stringent industry standards through efficient lifecycle management.

Digital thread

Connect data, teams, and processes with a digital thread for traceability, better decisions, and unified product lifecycle collaboration.

Digital twin

Use real-time data and digital twins to boost performance, enable predictive maintenance, and speed decisions across mission-critical system lifecycles.

Aerospace and defense: frequently asked questions

What is the aerospace and defense industry? How is it transforming?

The aerospace and defense industry designs, manufactures, and sustains the systems that power global aviation, space exploration, and military operations. It encompasses everything from commercial airliners and satellites to next-generation fighter jets and autonomous defense platforms. Today, the industry is undergoing rapid digital transformation. AI-driven technologies, cloud computing, digital twins, and smart manufacturing are redefining how systems are designed, built, operated, and maintained. PTC empowers aerospace and defense leaders to drive this transformation, delivering greater speed, precision, innovation, and lifecycle value across the mission.

How do PTC digital engineering technologies advance the strategic goals of governments and A&D stakeholders?

“The Companies That Make Products the World Relies on, Rely on PTC.” In many ways, PTC’s federal sector and aerospace and defense business embodies this idea. If you’re a defense contractor, that might mean lowering R&D costs within a firm fixed-price contract, accelerating product development, or addressing record backlogs. If you’re a government stakeholder, that could mean faster initial operating capability (IOC) of a new platform or increasing operational readiness of fielded assets. As the leader in preparing government and industry stakeholders for the convergence of the digital-physical world, PTC enables actionable intelligence to optimally design, manufacture, operate, and sustain warfighter and industrial systems.

What is PTC’s federal, aerospace, and defense customer base?

In the US market, PTC’s primary footprint is in the US Department of Defense (Army, Navy, Air Force), US Department of Energy, and NASA, along with major defense primes like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon (RTX). In the European market, PTC’s main customers include Airbus, BAE, Rolls-Royce, and Thales, as well as Safran, MBDA, and Lufthansa Technik.

Which PTC products are certified and/or compliant with federal cybersecurity policies?

As of December 2017, PTC has had a FedRAMP Authorized Moderate SaaS Hybrid Cloud. And specifically for DoD, as of February 2019, PTC has a provisional authorization for DISA Authorized IL5 Private Cloud. This covers every level of unclassified DoD data and is restricted to ONLY DoD customers—meaning no other government customers users are allowed to access or utilize it.