Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) > Using CMM > About Working with Family Tables
  
About Working with Family Tables
Family Tables are collections of similar parts, assemblies, or features but may differ slightly in one or two aspects, such as size or detail features. Family tables enable you to use standardized components by representing the part inventory in Creo Parametric. You can also easily interchange parts and subassemblies in an assembly, because instances from the same family are automatically interchangeable with each other.
You can use family tables in CMM to change dimensions, features, components, parameters, groups, and pattern tables in the model. If you add a step to the family table, its child features are managed automatically, that is, they are suppressed when the step is not included in a particular instance, and resumed when it is.
 
* A feature is suppressed if a required reference for the feature does not exist in the production family table instance or if the reference is not mapped automatically.