A configurable product is a generic design that accommodates different design variations and be used to produce product variants. When you build a product variant, a variant specification is used to define the components included in the variant. You can choose a predefined variant specification from the list. Alternatively, you can create a new one from scratch, from an existing variant specification, or from an existing simplified representation. When you create a new variant specification, you can select choices associated with components or select the components directly. When you are working in a linked session with Windchill, options and choices configured in Windchill are displayed by default. In this case, it is recommended to work with a top-down enterprise process that dictates business logic.

When you open the Variant Builder dialog box, options and choices assigned in the current session as well as all variant specifications defined for the configurable product are available. In this dialog box you can use variant specifications defined locally or from Windchill to preview potential product variants and generate new variant assemblies. You can also create and save local variant specifications of the product.