Streamline the aircraft certification process – Part 1: Integrate certification with product development

In aerospace and defense (A&D), regulatory certification is more than a requirement—it’s a crucial step in delivering safe, high-quality and innovative products. With strict FAA, EASA and DoD regulations, companies must take a proactive approach to certification.

Yet, many organizations still manage certification as a separate, end-of-process task, which can lead to unnecessary rework and increased costs. With a connected verification and certification approach, A&D companies can embed compliance into the development process, reducing complexity and accelerating time-to-market.

A new way to think about the aircraft certification process

This blog is the first in a three-part series exploring how a digital thread transforms certification by:

• Integrating certification with product development
• Establishing an auditable, continuous, traceable chain of data
• Linking the digital with the physical through a comprehensive digital twin

This post focuses on the first key element: Integrating certification with product development.

Why late-stage certification creates challenges

Treating certification as a final-stage task creates costly redesigns, delays and regulatory setbacks. As aircraft become more complex, with increasing software and electronic content, a disconnected approach to compliance is no longer sustainable as the cost of certification is now surpassing development itself.

This shift underscores the urgent need for a more efficient, connected certification strategy. A digital thread approach integrates certification into the entire product lifecycle, ensuring compliance is continuously validated rather than checked at the end. Late-stage certification issues lead to inefficiencies, forcing teams to make last-minute modifications that disrupt schedules and inflate costs.

With a connected verification process, teams can:

• Validate regulatory requirements early, reducing late-stage surprises
• Track certification progress in real time, ensuring full visibility across engineering and compliance teams
• Minimize reliance on physical testing by integrating virtual verification

By embedding certification into development, aerospace companies reduce risk, cut costs and accelerate time to market without compromising quality or safety.

Reducing certification costs with virtual testing

Traditional certification relies heavily on physical prototypes, which are expensive and time-consuming to build. A digital thread approach minimizes the need for physical testing by connecting design, simulation and verification workflows, ensuring compliance is continuously validated.

This connected verification and validation process enables teams to certify complex systems more efficiently, control costs and improve overall program success.

By integrating digital validation early, aerospace companies can streamline certification, reduce rework and accelerate regulatory approvals.

Digitalizing the aircraft certification process for greater speed and accuracy

With Siemens Xcelerator, A&D companies can:

• Automate compliance workflows to reduce manual effort
• Use digital twins to validate designs before physical testing
• Create a single source of truth for all certification data

With this approach, teams spend less time troubleshooting compliance issues and more time innovating —bringing certified, high-quality products to market faster.

Up next in this aerospace blog series

 In part 2, we’ll explore how to establish a continuous, traceable chain of data to keep compliance connected across teams, ensuring seamless, audit-proof approvals.

In the meantime, you can explore more resources and FAQs, here.