The paper is concerned with an improved scheme for application of the blank holding force in order to take account of the thickness distribution in the sheet material of the flange region. The scheme incorporates with a modified membrane finite element method for planar anisotropic materials. The new scheme proposed two coefficients α and βto calculate the compressive stress in the sheet metal due to the blank holding force, which should be determined properly for accurate analysis. The effect of αand βon the blank holding force distribution and the deformed shape is investigated with simulation of rectangular cup deep drawing processes by changing parameter values.