Search for substitute materials

GRANTA MI:Substitute is a module within GRANTA MI for guiding materials substitution, for example, allowing you to  find the best overall match to your "reference material", or to consider only specific attributes or groups of attributes. You can also focus your search by specifying any other property criteria that you wish your material to meet. Properties can be specified either using absolute values or relative to the reference material.

When MI:Substitute is available and enabled in your system:

• a Substitute button appears on the MI:Viewer toolbar:
  
• the Search page title becomes "Search and Substitute", and includes a Find substitutes for a given record tab where you can choose a reference record, specify which attributes you want to match, and run the substitution search.

Substitution results are presented in a clear, ranked list, based on their "nearness" to the reference record, making it quick and easy to identify the likeliest substitutes.

Find alternatives for a particular record

1. On the datasheet for the record of interest, select Tools > Find substitutes for this record.

   The selected record is defined as the Reference Record. To use a different reference record , click Change.

2. Select one of the following options:
   • Use All Attributes to calculate a substitute based on the value of all attributes in the reference record.
   • Use Individual Attributes to select individual attributes on which the substitution calculation will be based.
   • Use Attribute Groups to select groups of attributes on which the substitution calculation will be based.
3. Select the attributes or attribute groups you want to match (unless Use All Attributes has been selected).
   
4. Optionally, set the value for Ignore records whose results are less complete than. For potential substitution records, at least this percentage of attributes used in the substitution calculation must be populated, otherwise the record will be discounted.
   
5. Click Search to perform the search.  

MI:Substitute then analyzes all of the records in the database, returning a list of candidate records.

Substitution results reports

Substitution search results can be used to generate different reports:

Nearness Report

Shows all records which pass your search criteria, ranked in order of distance from your reference record, with values of all the attributes used in the nearness calculation.

Potential Issues Report

Highlights potential issues with your results which may not have been considered in your substitution criteria.

User defined report

You can click User Defined Report here to add the search results to the Record list and open the Reports page, where you can chart, plot, and run analysis reports on the records returned by your search.