Minimum weight design of the boom of an excavator with stress and displacement constraints was performed. The procedure of analysis consists of the following steps. The finite element model of the boom was built up by using 227 triangular plate elements each of which has three nodes. And then the finite element program was implemented and its accuracy was verified by comparing its results with those of the commercial structural analysis package-ANSYS 4.4A. For the constraints of stresses and displacements, the design sensitivities of those were computed using direct differentiation method. To verify the reliability of them the results were compared with those of the finite difference method. The optimum design value was obtained by using PLBA(Pshenichny-Lim-Belegundu-Arora)non-linear optimization program which adopts the active set strategy. Using the above results, minimum weight design of an excavator boom showed an effect of 27% reduction in weight.