Part Numbering Systems for CAD management.

What forms of part numbering systems are people using to handle
designs in SWx?

Currently we have two systems. Our internal products have a three
number family, followed by a four number sequence, followed by a two
number configuration, eg.
100-0001-00

Our custmer projects have an abbreviation of the customers name (there
are no hard rules for the abbreviation), followed by the job number
(four digits), followed by a three number sequence. eg.
DB-3045-004

To simplify managment, assemblies sometimes start the sequence at
100. eg.
DB-3045-101

Configurations of the same part are normally given a new part number,
unless it is handled inside the SWx file. Then we normally use a
descriptive term such as "Left" or "Flat Pattern".

We don't currently have a PDM system so revisions are manually packed
into a new folder named for its date of creation.

Similarly different versions of the same design are kept in seperate
folders, with a descriptive name. eg.
\Client\V2 Concept Key Former

We are trying to come up with an improved system, but we end up with
11 or 12 digit part numbers. Do you other designers have strong part
naming systems in place?

Cheers, Dom.

 

That's probably a bit dumb.
Often part numbers are taken out in blocks and
often man-readable info is "encoded" into the
"smart" bits & format structure.

 

This is very good advice, do not try to build intelligent numbering.
The best thing to do is to do is to create sequential numbers and use
a database of some sort to keep track of the data that goes along with
them. We tried to do this once (intelligent numbers) and we could
never get it to work. Before you know it you are adding more and more
intelligent numbers to your parts until the only person who knows what
all those numbers mean is the person who wrote the document.

Jim

 

Ten years ago I was employed with a company that "made good" and was
moving away from custom engineering to manufacturing of high tech
equipment.
Part of the transition included moving to 3D CAD and adopting a ERP
system.

There were only two meetings were people were screaming at each other
(this in a place that was pretty laid back).

One was coming up with a revision standard..... the other was
inteligent vs. non-inteligent numbering of items/drawings.

I think a total of 4-5 days were expended hashing over the pro's and
con's of each system

In the end (against my advice), a 12 digit "intelligent" numbering
schema was developed. Because we had to convert some old data/drawings
over to the new system we hired a manufacturing "expert" to help us to
convert over.

This process took over 3 months of 2 people working full time.

After we went live with the system, my first project was to order the
raw material, components, and equipment, used to produce a product
we'd been making for years.

That's when I started to find duplicate "item" numbers (i.e. same part
- different numbers). After some investigating I found numerous parts/
assemblies/drawings that had been renamed based on a different
interpretation of the numbering schema. My record was finding six
identical parts with different "part numbers". The problem was so bad
that people no longer believed in the "inteligent" numbering scheme
when they went looking for a part.
To make matters worse, once an Item touched the accounting system
there was no way to back it out of the system. You had to obsolete the
item in the ERP system. These parts were used in common
assemblies........ our assemblies might be 5 layers deep.........it
was a nightmare.

The end result was a "dumb" system that was 12 digits long (not
including the dashes).

In the next company we worked for we assigned sequential numbers to
the SW parts/assemblies as we created them. We used a 5 digit number
series for our products, and another for purchased components,
equipment, and hardware.
Each SW model that was created was assigned a 5 digit number based on
which category it belonged in.

Set up SW Tree to display description of the file so that we got the
best of both worlds - a number to identify the file and a description
for the end user.

Most intelligent numbering system (unless they are dead simple - and
then what's the point) end up causing more problems than they solve
over time. As the people who are most familiar with the schema move on
to other companies or up the food chain the reason for the system
begins to fade into the background.

my .02

Len

 

Intelligent part numbering is an unintelligent choice. Everywhere I
have seen it, it was more trouble than it was worth. The worst aspect
was the spawning of part number trolls who ended up owning and running
the system while not being good for much else.

All that a part number needs to do is uniquely identify each part or
assembly. Let the MRP system do its job without adding part numbering
to its burden.

I think it's ok to have a limited amount of numbering logic, i.e.
distinguish between assemblies and parts. Beyond that.... yeesh!

 

It iterate simply, "Dumb numbers are good, Smart numbers are
stupid".

You'll spend more time arguing over a part going into this or that
category once than you'll ever by "knowing" something because of the
part number "intelligence".

Matt Lorono
http://sw.fcsuper.com
http://www.fcsuper.com/swblog

 

Wow...

Thanks for your responses guys!

The numbering system we developed is based on a similiar system from a
previous job of mine. It was not intended to be intelligent, however
I guess organising parts in terms of families does convey some
intelligence. Currently we have about 60 different customer folders
in our CAD directory. Seperating customer projects for us is really
important, and our resources are quite limited, so including a
customer reference in the part number seemed to be the most logical
step. The only other intelligence in customer part numbers is to
seperate assemblies from parts.

There are only two of us designing, and we also work in our factory
machining and fabricating prototypes. We do about 20 projects a year,
and have been using SWx for over five years now. Purchasing an ERP or
PDM system is beyond our resources at the moment. (We are still
paying off the loan for SWx!!) We do have a "database" of part
numbers in an excel spreadsheet in preparation for adopting an ERP
system, so the part numbering information is being captured as we
create them. Each year we do about 250 customer and internal jobs,
but some of these don't require any CAD work.

Here is the current list of part families (Internal Products only).
There is plenty of room for expansion in this system. Some of these
families have not been used yet and we may review these at some time
and delete them. We probably have 50 different products that we make.

100 Fabricated Metal
110 Fabricated Plastics
120 Fabricated Metal Assembly
130 Fabricated Plastic Assembly
140 Mechanical Assembly
150 Electrical/Electronic Assembly
160 Wiring Harness
180 Mesh Products
200 Fibre Glass and Composites
250 Glass And Ceramic
300 Rubber Parts and 0-Rings, Grommets etc.
310 Non Slip Matting
320 Rubber Belt
330 Foam Padding, Seats
340 Silicone, Glues and Lubricants
400 Motors
410 Batteries
420 Crimps
430 Plugs
440 Wiring.
450 Circuit Boards
460 Controllers
470 Electrical components eg switches
480 Electronic Components eg, caps, resistors, IC's
490 Lights
500 Software and Programming
600 Threaded Fasteners
610 Un-Threaded Fasteners
615 Machine Hardware
620 Bearings and Bushes
650 Buy Ins, eg. Ratchet Handles, Lobe Knobs
700 Outside Cost eg, welding, powder coating, zinc plating, machining.
800 Packaging
810 Manuals
820 Labels
900 Raw Material, SS
910 Raw Material, Alloy Steel
920 Raw Material, Aluminium
930 Raw Material, Plastics


Cheers, Dom.

 

Then EVERYBODY is using dumb sequential part numbers,
right?

 

Indeed.

 

That's a bit off the wall. Questions are asked for a reason. Answers
are provided from experience. In my experience, the choice to use
smart numbers is usually made by people that do not directly have
anything to do with how they are assigned or used.

Matt Lorono
http://sw.fcsuper.com
http://www.fcsuper.com/swblog

 

Our company uses a sequential system that has "some" intelligence.
1xxxxxxx Assemblies
2xxxxxxx Parts (custom/Fab)
3xxxxxxx Toolong
4xxxxxxx C.O.T.S. parts

Substitute the x's for sequential numbers.

 

Let's see .... you have part number ... what bin in
what department should you look for it in?
You have a part number .. it's 4596541 .... what
sort of thing is it? Does it have an E size drawing or an A?
Is that a purchased part or do you have to make it?
Pity the poor repairman ... where's his PDM system?
Part numbers serve many more purposes than just
for stuffing into a PDM system.
What's dumb about that?

 

Dom,

Hope it works out for you. I'm big time in favor of the smart part
number system. I work / have worked for a company that uses it and it
works VERY well. People are your best ERP system. They get to
recognize the part numbers and what they mean. There's an instant
recognition.

With sequential systems, you're selling your soul to the database
administrators who hold all the metadata hostage and try to make you
change your business practices to accomodate their software. It's a
slippery slope.

 

"snip"

"snip"

Most decent PDM systems can be configured for any "numbering" schema
the company wishes.
That includes "intelligent", semi-intelligent, or sequential. Most if
not all have an autonumber generator that can be based on (but not
limited to):

1. Category of the models (Products, Equipment, Components, Hardware,
etc..)
2. Project Numbering or departments (mechanical vs. electrical vs.
software)
3. Number "prefixes" or "suffixes"
4. Standard Parts (i.e. Toolbox or other CAD library).
5. Concatanation of category sub-headings to arrive at a consistent
"Description" for each new part
6. Can place the renamed/existing file in any location (drive/folder)
the user wants based on their requirements.
7. Can move the file to other folders upon approval and release
including generating PDF files for customers and vendors use (Using
another naming schema if company policy requires it).

System can be as simple or as complicated as one wishes.

The statement that states a PDM system adheres to one type of
numbering schema is incorrect.
One could argue, that a PDM system can ensure your intelligent
numbering system is being adhered to by walking the user through
company defined steps during the file creation process.

Like most system, garbage in means garbage out.

The problem is most companies either do not have a formal procedure or
they have an "ad-hoc" one that changes depending on which person
happens to be in the office that day.
In addition, they maintain procedures that, while quite adequate for
2D systems, don't take into the account the unique needs of 3D
systems.

Done right it can ensure your company is following procedures faster
and more accurately than any person could.

And as for the comment on being held hostage by the metadata - one
could argue that being locked into a particular CAD format
(interoperability between clients, machine shops, etc...) is a lot
more restrictive than any metadata which by nature is CAD or system
independent. The latter only applies if the system isn't encrypted in
a proprietary format - which one should never do in the first place
(i.e. You own the drawing/data/metadata).

Len

 

Part numbering schemes can be like a religion. Dangerous territory.
How you view it has a lot to do with what you come up with. For
example, the shop guy might be used to having fasteners numbered with
a code that pertains to all the attributes of a fastener and since
they know the system they will swear at you when you change how the
fasteners are numbered. The engineer may find things by looking at the
description of the part and not care a bit about what the number is. A
non-computer savvy manager type might like to know that a certain
system does apply to part numbers so they can find things in their
head easily. It can go on and on. So the first thing you have to
decide is what does a part number mean inside the company.

If you decide that a part number simply refers to a unique part which
can be thrown into a box with other parts having the same number and
when any part is withdrawn at random from the box it will work just as
well as any other in the box then you have made progress in knowing
what part number system will work. That system would simply be a
sequential set of numbers. This is an important concept even though it
seems very simple.

Now you also have to make a distinction between a part number for
something that is actually physically made or intended to be made and
something a bit more abstract like a drawing. Should a drawing have
the same number as the part it represents? If you say yes then how do
you do a charted drawing? In the age of 3D models, should a model have
the same number as the part or assembly it represents? For a part you
have the same issue if the part has configurations suitable for
charting or other variations. Similarly with assemblies you may have a
layout assembly for quoting, an assembly for the assembly department
and another assembly for the manual of the same "assembly". Ditto for
drawings.

You may think I am being overly nit picky, but I am not. The ERP folks
are only concerned with what is actually manufactured and engineering
will be interested in all the variations, configurations, prototypes,
things in R&D and development as far as tracking SW files. Tech pubs
will be interested in something else again and shipping something
else. So each group will be interested in "numbers" but maybe not all
the numbers.

You can also see that part numbers with meaning would not work well in
today's world because the same part might be documented several
different ways and not all documents would pertain to all aspects of
your company. The meaningful part number was much more important in
the past when drawings had to be physically filed and tracked but in
the modern world this is done for the most part by a computer using a
database. With CAD systems like SW you may create a lot of files doing
what ifs, etc. Further, a meaningful part number automatically limits
how many parts you can have. Numbers are cheap, really cheap, unless
you run out. of them. As soon as you limit yourself to 3 digits, 4
digits or whatever you have limited possibilities and you will
eventually run into a wall. Remember Y2K.

The question might come up then as to how you find a part if the part
number has no meaning other than being next after the previous number?
Well this isn't too hard. Consider the list in this thread with three
digit numbers referring to different categories of part. Why not do
away with the list associating numbers with categories and just use
categories in either the description or as a separate attribute for
the part or assembly? Most decent PDM systems today will allow for
some sort of automated categorization making this very easy and
consistent. Categories and descriptions are not limited the way
categorized blocks of numbers are.

Another issue with part numbers is that you may have to carry along a
customer's part number with your own. This is not uncommon. You may
also have to carry along a catalog number with a part number. A decent
PDM system will be able to associate the part number engineering uses
with a number denoting a part intended to be manufactured, a catalog
number, a customer P/N, a quote number, a sales oriented model number,
etc.

TOP

 

And to customers, vendors, the supply & distribution chains.
Good idea to have some "redundancy" too so that a typo does not
generally deliver the wrong $$ part but rather flags things as an
incorrect part number.
And most of the other users do not have *your* PDM system.

 

Thanks TOP, this is giving me some more insight into how we can
identify what we really "need". I think now we will be able to
develop some ideas about how to number things. I think I will also
start looking at PDM systems and see if there isn't something that can
do what we want.

To the others out there, can anyone give some examples of how they
handle customer CAD info?

An example of our file names for customers are: DK-2986-001
Where DK is an abbreviation of the customers name, 2986 is the Job
number, and 001 is sequential.


Cheers, Dom.

 

Dom,

I'm guessing you make a lot of same but different. Motors, wheels,
gearboxes, etc. Even if I was in your situation and didn't have a
PDM system I would simply arrange folders in blocks of sequential
numbers. You can store the customer's name, job number, etc. in the
top level assembly custom properties and search on them with SW
Explorer. I wouldn't store that information in any parts that can be
re-used.

Excel spreadsheets also are handy to keep track of part number/
description assignments and also to keep track of job number/customer
assignments. Keeping this information out of the filename will help
down the road if you go to PDM.

One of the problems I have seen in using "intelligent" part numbers
for file names is that when you do go to PDM the intelligent system
always seems to be difficult to program for auto number generation
because they contain a human factor that is hard for a computer to
understand.

TOP

 

And one size of shoe fits all, right?
Why not look at what some of the old large firms do?
You may not need to struggle to reinvent the wheel.
Might be some technical papers too.

 

Dom,
Your list reminds me of the Dewey decimal system, which has proven
over time to be a robust, reliable, scalable system.

That said, in my office, the Engineers I work with maintain that
intelligent part numbering is a disaster waiting to happen. They
insist on sequential part numbering, and I go with their counsul.

I can see their point - sometimes a fabricated part will transform
into a cast part as the design progresses or the part goes through
rounds of quoting, requiring a new part number.

With my job the decision is mostly out of my hands - as a contract
design house, we have to follow our customer's part numbering
scheme.

However, if I were making the parts in "ed's manufacturing company", I
would find your 'Dewey decimal' system very attractive.

Ed