A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

PLM Data, Identification and Part Numbers

PLM Data, Identification and Part Numbers
olegshilovitsky
olegshilovitsky
9 April, 2010 | 3 min for reading

I’d like to follow my yesterday post about PLM data modeling and talk about one of the issues that in my view are very important in PLM systems and implementations. The issue of identification or how it sometimes called “numbering system” is fundamental when you start thinking how to organize you product data. This is not a new problem, in my view. It comes all the time in the beginning of each implementation, when you start thinking about how to identify literally everything in your system. It normally starts from Part Numbers but spread out later.

The identification is a very complex problem. In the beginning, you can easy underestimate the size of this issue. However, as much you will be going forward you can easy come to the conclusion that this is one of the most important issues to decide before doing any implementation. I’d like to put few of the challenges that I think important to mention when you think about identification.

Multiple Systems
In the situation when you run many systems, you need to synchronize numbering and identification schema between them. This can be a not simple task and require significant effort and time.

Global Design and Manufacturing
Product development is going global these days. You want to design, build and support your system on a global scale. Product design and manufacturing are often happening in different countries and locations. In many cases, your local manufacturing facilities will be using local ERP system with local numbering and identification schema. At the same time, global product design will be interested to rely on the single identification worldwide.

Manufacturing and Supply Chain
The product development activity can be split between different parties – OEM’s and suppliers. OEM and suppliers are using separate and often different systems. To synchronize or coordinate numbering systems between them is another challenge on a global scale.

Company Mergers and Acquisitions
This is another type of the activities when you will face identification problems. Mergers and acquisitions happen and, in this case, you need to make an effort to create a single common identification schema from two or more separate systems.

This is not a full list, but figure out the most critical aspects that need to be taken into account. Recently, I came across a very interesting write-up about Part Numbering on the ZeroWait State blog. I think you can get some ideas about possible Part Numbering options such as – intelligent, semi-intelligent, automatic.

What is my conclusion today? I think the problem of the identification will become more urgent very soon. Most of the systems in product development and manufacturing were designed 15-20 years ago and considered problem of the identification as a number in a local database. Growing exchange in design and manufacturing information on a global scale will introduce new types of identification problems. In my view, enterprise systems in general, but PLM specifically will need to learn some lessons from internet systems development to find a right solution to this problem.

I’m interested to hear about your practice and experience with implementation of identification systems in your organization and during the implementation you made.

Best, Oleg

Share

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
4 December, 2018

Cloud PDM is the topic I’ve been following for some time. Check my articles about cloud PDM here. One of...

25 October, 2016

I’m heading to SolidEdge University 2016 today. Although my attendance there will be focused on openBoM, I will spend some...

29 September, 2012

Even if PLM (as a buzzword, business strategy and software) has a relatively short history, we can talk about some...

6 January, 2016

Who owns product data? Engineering.com article Moving Towards Product Innovation Platforms by Verdi Ogewell brings that question and share some interesting...

7 September, 2016

My attention was caught by tweet promoting CIMdata’s complimentary PLM Leadership Tutorials – a set of videos describing PLM in...

5 July, 2022

How do you envision the future of PLM data modeling? In my earlier posts, I was talking about some of...

20 November, 2015

Manufacturing companies, analysts and software vendors are sharing excitement about huge potential of IoT and connected products. This is a very...

20 July, 2010

My new website and blog is BeyondPLM. The original post is here. I read two blog articles written by Mark...

30 May, 2025

Earlier this week, I had the chance to present at the Share PLM Summit 2025 in Jerez de la Frontera....

Blogroll

To the top