The methodical procedure for the development of additive manufactured, innovative packing structures in laboratory scale is described with the focus on the methodology of development strategies. Packing structures, based on crystal lattices, with flexible dimensioning are created with the VBA-tool in Autodesk Inventor (R). For the characterisation CFD simulations are used to examine the dry specific pressure drop and the liquid distribution. For additive manufacturing of the packing with the shell, selective laser sintering as additive manufacturing method and polyamide 12 as material were selected.