Abstract: After a module of a configured product is modified,how to search the potential modules to be modified caused by the first modification is one of the hot issues in product configuration research.Therefore,an evaluation method for variant design node schemes is proposed in complex product development network.Firstly,the evaluation indexes including the betweenness,the information degree and the network clustering coefficient are integrated to describe the network characteristics of the set of variant design nodes.Then,combining the time and resource constraints for the variant design,a discrete particle swarm algorithm is employed to optimize the configuration of variant design nodes,and to make the configuration solution for variant design nodes satisfy the requirement of controlling variant design propagation.Lastly,an example of variant design for a type of vacuum cleaner product verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method,which is meaningful to rationally choosing the variant design nodes in complex product development network.