a method and corresponding system is provided for determining an optimum manufacturing process routing . the method comprises electronically constructing a plurality of manufacturing process routings for a component to be manufactured . the electronically constructing for each manufacturing process routing of the plurality of manufacturing process routings comprises defining a recursive process routing tree for each manufacturing process routing , the recursive process routing tree comprising a plurality of nodes , each node of the plurality of nodes corresponding to a manufacturing process and comprising a branch node when the manufacturing process for a given node may be decomposed into a plurality of sub - processes for the given node . the method further comprises electronically determining an optimum process routing by evaluating each recursive process routing tree with reference to a cost for manufacturing the component to be optimized and determining the optimum process routing that minimizes the cost for manufacturing the component .