This program’s purpose is to allow engineers and designers to verify clearances between moving or stationary parts within a machine. This check becomes more critical when one recognizes that all the features of machined parts are machined according to an allowable tolerance range. These accumulated tolerances can close the gap resulting in a malfunctioning machine.
It should be obvious that all the features of all the parts will not be at the maximum of their tolerance range, nor at their minimum. This program, in addition to calculating gaps based on max/min tolerance, will do calculations based on the probability of features being a certain size. This probability calculation is used by a majority of the major manufacturers today (six sigma).