Design sensitivity analysis scheme is proposed in an elasto -plastic finite element method with explicit time integration using a direct differentiation method. The direct differentiation is concerned with large deformation, the elasto-plastic constitutive relation, shell elements with reduced integration and the contact scheme. The design sensitivities with respect to the process parameter are calculated with the direct analytical differentiation of the governing equation. The sensitivity results obtained from the present theory are compared with that obtained by the finite difference method in a class of sheet metal forming problems such as hemi-spherical stretching and cylindrical cup deep-drawing. The result shows good agreement with the finite difference method and demonstrates that the preposed sensitivity calculation scheme is a pplicable in the complicated sheet metal forming analysis and design.