A method and device for determining an optimum manufacturing variant for manufacturing a product from currently available manufacturing alternatives of one or more manufacturing plants, and for creating the associated manufacturing documents based on the following steps: creating a product-specific, manufacturing plant-independent CAD manufacturing specification of the product to be manufactured; determining different possible manufacturing alternatives for manufacturing the product based on the created product-specific, manufacturing plant independent CAD-manufacturing specification and the available manufacturing machines; generating a specific CAD-model for each determined manufacturing alternative, wherein a feedback report is created by an associated CAM-engine for each generated specific CAD-model; evaluating the created feedback reports of the different manufacturing alternatives in order to determine the manufacturing alternatives that are suitable for manufacturing the product and to evaluate whether each manufacturing alternative complies with predefined manufacturing tolerances and manufacturing specifications; and selecting the optimum manufacturing alternative.