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Your Product Lighter, Higher Performing, and Designed Faster? It’s Possible with Generative Design.
Reducing Weight, Accelerating Development, and Driving Innovation: The New Challenge for Engineering Teams
In the aerospace industry, innovation is often measured in grams. Every kilogram removed can lower launch costs, improve operational performance, and unlock new technical possibilities. Yet engineering teams face a difficult challenge: designing increasingly lightweight products without compromising safety, reliability, or durability.
Adding to this already complex equation is another pressure: time. Development cycles are getting shorter, competition is intensifying, and manufacturers are expected to bring more advanced products to market faster than ever before. Faced with these challenges, traditional design methods are sometimes reaching their limits.
That is why more and more companies are turning to an innovative approach: generative design. This technology automatically explores hundreds of optimized solutions to identify the best options based on the constraints and objectives defined by engineers. It is an approach that is already transforming the way tomorrow’s products are designed.
When Aerospace Requirements Push Engineering Beyond Its Limits
The experience of Jacobs Engineering, a partner of NASA, perfectly illustrates the potential of this new approach.
The company was working to optimize the Exploration Portable Life Support System (xPLSS), a critical life-support backpack designed for astronauts. This essential equipment must operate reliably during space missions while meeting extremely demanding requirements for weight, safety, and performance.
In an environment where every gram sent into space directly impacts mission costs and efficiency, engineering teams were looking for a solution that could go beyond conventional design approaches. They chose to leverage the generative design capabilities integrated into PTC Creo.
Rethinking Design to Discover What Was Never Considered Possible
Traditionally, engineers create multiple versions of a component before selecting the best option. This process takes time and naturally limits the number of alternatives that can be explored. Generative design turns this process upside down.
Engineers define the requirements, performance targets, materials, and potential manufacturing methods.
The software then automatically generates a large number of optimized concepts that meet those criteria.
This ability to explore a vast design space opens the door to unexpected geometries, many of which would be difficult to imagine using conventional methods. The resulting solutions are no longer constrained by design habits or human bias, but instead guided by the product’s performance goals. For engineering teams, this represents a significant opportunity: spending more time validating and refining innovative concepts rather than manually creating countless design variations.
Exploring Hundreds of Possibilities to Find the Best Design
Using generative design, the Jacobs team was able to quickly evaluate numerous combinations of materials and manufacturing processes, including both traditional manufacturing and additive manufacturing. This approach enabled them to optimize multiple structural components by systematically searching for the best balance between performance, strength, and weight.
The value of this methodology extends far beyond the space industry. Aerospace, defense, automotive, energy, and high-tech manufacturers all face similar challenges: reducing weight, improving performance, controlling costs, and accelerating product development. Across all these industries, having a tool capable of rapidly evaluating hundreds of possible scenarios can provide a significant competitive advantage.
Results That Demonstrate the Power of Generative Design
The results achieved by Jacobs Engineering clearly demonstrate the potential of generative design. The company succeeded in reducing the mass of certain parts by up to 50% while maintaining the functional requirements necessary for their intended use. This weight reduction directly contributes to lower fuel consumption and improved astronaut mobility.
The company also estimates that this approach could reduce the design phase by approximately 20%, significantly increasing engineering productivity. Beyond the numbers, these results show that organizations no longer need to choose between performance, efficiency, and speed.
Generative design makes it possible to achieve lighter products, optimized performance, and shorter development cycles simultaneously.
The Future of Engineering Is Being Built Today
Products are becoming more complex, regulatory requirements continue to grow, and market expectations are evolving faster than ever. In this environment, the companies that succeed will be those capable of innovating rapidly while optimizing every stage of product development. Generative design is no longer an experimental technology reserved for a handful of pioneers.
It is increasingly becoming a strategic tool for manufacturers looking to accelerate innovation, improve product performance, and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. At Innoptus, we help manufacturers adopt advanced engineering and product development solutions such as PTC Creo. Today’s generative design technologies enable engineering teams to explore more possibilities, make better decisions faster, and develop products that push the boundaries of performance and innovation.
Source
PTC Case Study: "Jacobs Takes Product Design to New Heights with Generative Design for Aerospace"
https://www.ptc.com/fr/case-studies/jacobs-engineering-generative-design-aerospace