Abstract Currently, the additive manufacturing process SLM (selective laser melting) is of high interest in the aerospace industry for the manufacture of jet engine components. This is driven by several factors such as reducing weight and minimizing the variation in the manufacturing process. In the paper, the state of practice in designing SLM parts is examined showing that there is plenty of opportunity to adapt designs to the process. However, this is often too time consuming in the early stages. By examining the state of art in SLM part design, the paper and identifies the variant specific cost drives that are proposed to be used to rank the manufacturability of different design alternatives for turbine frame aerospace components.