Groups collect features together, but they also provide a powerful level of control over the order of manufacturing operations.
Check Ordered in the Group Properties dialog box when you create a group to set manufacturing in the exact ordered specified. If you created an ordered group with a hole and a rectangular pocket, then the operations are performed as follows:
spotdrill hole
drill hole
rough pocket
finish pocket
You can mix ordered and unordered groups in your setup for more flexibility in ordering operations. For example, perform all drilling operations first and all milling operations last:
Make all of your features.
Create an Unordered group of holes.
This indicates no preference about the order for manufacturing the holes.
Use Rename from the Edit menu to name the group holegroup.
Create a second Unordered group of your milling features name millgroup.
Create a third group that contains holegroup and millgroup in that order.
Mark this group as Ordered and call this group allgroup.
When allgroup is manufactured, all the holes are made first, then the milled features are made. Within each group, FeatureMILL optimizes the order so that tool changes are minimized. That means for holegroup, all spotdrilling operations are done first, followed by all drilling operations. Then all milling operations are completed. Using groups, you control the order of manufacturing operations without sacrificing the help that FeatureMILL can provide.