Using the material search functionality within PTC FlexPLM allows product designers and developers the option to compare materials, material suppliers, and material and supplier attributes. Searching for a material that matches product requirements can return multiple materials and suppliers. The compare action gives PTC FlexPLM users the ability to perform a side by side comparison of selected material search results.

The following attributes are not compared:

Differences in attribute values between selected materials are highlighted. In addition, MOA tables that are configured on the materials are displayed side by side for ease of comparison. However, differences in the row data of MOA tables are not highlighted.

The system administrator sets the number of results that can be compared in the lcs.properties file. The com.lcs.wc.material.compareMaterials.maxNumber property controls the number of materials that can be selected. The default setting for this property is 3. There is no upper limit on this property setting. However, larger numbers for comparison have a noticeable impact on system performance.

Administrators can also determine if attributes with multiple components appear in expanded or collapsed form in the comparison table. The jsp.compare.CompareObject.collapseMOAGroupsByDefault property determines if the attributes are collapsed by default. If set to true, all attributes with multiple components are collapsed in the material comparison page when the user accesses the page for the first time. This property is set to true by default.