By default, ESI services will not process control characteristics. The relevant attribute on the distribution target has to be set in order for control characteristics (associated to a part, to a process plan or to an operation) to be processed.

With the distribution target attributes for publishing control characteristics and for publishing alternate parts set, control characteristics associated to an alternate part will be processed as well.

With the distribution target attributes for publishing control characteristics and for publishing substitute parts set, control characteristics associated to a substitute part will be processed as well.

With the distribution target attribute Publish Control Characteristics when Publishing a Process Plan set to Yes, control characteristics associated to an operation will be processed as well, when processing the holding process plan. This happens regardless of the value of the distribution target attribute for publishing control characteristics associated to a part, even if those control characteristics are also associated to a part.

Control characteristics have to be associated to a part or to a manufacturing object (such as a process plan or an operation) in order for ESI services to process them. In order for a control characteristic associated to an operation to be processed, the control characteristic must be associated to its owner.

When processing control characteristics, the quality links that associate a control characteristic to a part, a process plan or an operation are processed as well.

Control characteristics may or may not be associated to model items.

Model items associated to control characteristics will be processed only for newly created or changed control characteristics. Also, only those attributes that are relevant for a given type of model item will be processed.

Attempting to publish a control characteristic whose model item’s EPM document is no longer associated to the owner of the control characteristic will result in a failure.

A control characteristic would be rendered as an unchanged object if it is republished after simply changing its description. In order for the control characteristic to be processed as a changed object, a new version of the object should be released.