Augustine’s “Law XVI” noted that every generation of aircraft is more expensive than the last, and for decades this “law” seemed to be true. Now the spiral of rising aircraft development costs has finally been conquered, thanks to new digital capabilities to handle the complexity that drives it.

John O’Connor of Siemens explains why advances in A&D tend to increase complexity, and how Siemens Xcelerator can bring that complexity under control with digital threads running from design through planning and production and right into machines on the production line.