You can use various types of Creo features as building blocks in the progressive creation of solid parts. Certain features, by necessity, precede other more dependent features in the design process. Those dependent features rely on the previously defined features for dimensional and geometric references. This is known as a parent-child relationship.

The parent-child relationship is one of the most powerful aspects of Creo and parametric modeling in general. This relationship plays an important role in propagating changes across the model to maintain the design intent. After a parent feature in a part is changed, all children are dynamically altered to reflect the changes in the parent feature. If you suppress or delete a parent feature, Creo prompts you for an action pertaining to the related children. You can also minimize the cases of unnecessary or unintended parent-child relationships.

It is therefore essential to reference feature dimensions so that Creo can correctly propagate design changes throughout the model. When working with parent-child relationships, it can be helpful to remember that parent features can exist without child features. However, child features cannot exist without their parents.