Search Procedure

Once the preparatory stage has been completed, the variant planning system is prepared for production. The fundamental idea of a variant system is to search for a process plans for similar components. The search for a process plan is depending on the search of a part family to which the component belongs. Once the part family has been found, the approximate standard process plan is retrieved. Normally the standard plan requires some modifications before it can be utilized. Sometimes manual modification of the final process plan might also become necessary.

A number of search procedures have been employed for this reason.