Selective laser melting (SLM) is one of the most important technologies used when complex metallic parts need to be rapidly manufactured. There are some requirements related to the quality of the manufactured part or the accuracy of the process control, in order to turn SLM process into a production technique. This paper presents a case study undertaken at the Technical University of Cluj‐Napoca (TUCN) in cooperation with an industrial company from Romania, focusing on the accuracy issues. Finite element analysis (FEA) and Design Expert software were jointly used in order to determine the optimum process parameters required to improve the accuracy of the SLM metallic parts. Experimental results are also presented in the paper.