The manufacturing process of modern equipment becomes very complex due to features such as mass units, multiple machining, and complicated coupling-relationships, posing a big challenge for determining the manufacturing scheme. This paper addresses the challenge by proposing a graph theory-based optimization design for the complex manufacturing process. A detailed analysis of a serial of graph models built according to the manufacturing process features reveals that the Hamilton graph is suitable for modeling the manufacturing process system. Some model weight assignment functions are extracted for the quantitative study. Further the optimal scheme for an optimization design of the complex manufacturing process is solved using the full link graph feature algorithm -a search optimization algorithm. A manufacturing model matrix is constructed, and penalty number and divisor are formulated to simplify the matrix and improve the algorithm efficiency in the process of algorithm design. An example is provided to demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.INDEX TERMS Graph model, graph theory, manufacturing process, model weight, optimization design.ZHONG HAN received the B.S. degree in computer application technology and the M.S. degree in computer science and technology from the University of Electronical Science and Technology, Chengdu, China, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering and automation from Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.He was a Postdoctoral Researcher of intelligent manufacturing technology with the Xi'an Jiaotong University of China. He is currently an Associate