A general scheme for automatic detection of redundant location dimensions and tolerances of a part is presented. A dimensional tree is derived from the database of the feature based design system whenever the user specifies location dimension and tolerance information of a part. A depth first search algorithm is applied to see if the specified dimension and tolerance is redundant. The scheme informs the user of the redundancy and prevents the redundant information from being stored in the system. Several examples of various complexities of parts have been tested with success.