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To succeed means to develop and produce a product with optimal properties for considerable lower price in comparison to similar products on the market. Material selection is one of crucial decisions in product development process affecting quality as well as price of future product. In technical praxis, the designer has to evaluate the information gathered from material data sheets and simulations, engineering analysis and animations of future product performance in virtual environment. Afterwards, he or she has to seek interdependences between them and finally choose the optimum from the broad list of materials. Wide spectrum of various polymers at disposal should be outlined here, as it presents a problem to the designer at polymer material selection process. The proposed decision support system model is an attempt to solve this dilemma and will focus on function, technical features and shape of developing product. Other criteria, like serviceability, technical feasibility and economic justification are going to be considered accordingly. The major benefits concern inexperienced designers along with small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs').

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Product development process is knowledge intensive engineering task mainly supported by adequate computer aids. Decision-making is a part of design process and almost never supported by computational advice or recommendation to specific design aspects. This paper is orientated at deficiencies in material selection process within a new product development process. General practice in major enterprises is represented and the contribution of proposed intelligent decision support system is introduced. Its execution and integration of human cognition in the field of Design of Manufacturing (DFM) and plastic products' design are also explicated in this article.