I there, 

I'm looking for good information on how to manage large numbers of product variants. 1.000-30.0000 Variants of a product.. 

On our current setup in V5, we have created a Product Startmodel that includes two designtables. One for which components needs to be instantiated in the specific chosen variant and the second designtable stores the information on how the components are constrained. And by a few actions we can delete and instantiate, constrain the new variant. 

Now to 3Dx and Variant management.. I understand you can create the complete variant matrix, but how is this coupled to the physical product..? How are the engineering connections created..? E.G. we make pumps, and in our multistage we can have 1-50 stages... does this mean i have to make 50different assemblies manually or is it possible to create just one and have a parameter to define how many stages i need..?  

As far as i understand you would have to create a part or physical product and then assign it to the Variant Matrix.. ? 
You have to close your assembly and load another to switch between variants..? 

I would like to go in the direction "OOTB" but i see to many limitations.. so what am i missing.. ? Are there any Experts who would like to help us at Grundfos to do this right..?