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

Intelligent Part Numbers might be a good idea in “connected world”

Intelligent Part Numbers might be a good idea in “connected world”
Oleg
Oleg
4 November, 2015 | 3 min for reading

meaningfull-part-numbers

Part numbers. This is probably one of the most discussed topic in manufacturing and related software domains. How to define Part Numbers? How to manage it using multiple systems? What schema to use? Engineers and software vendors are trying to figure out how to do it. Sometimes, it is very confusing.

Dumb numbers vs. Intelligent number is a quintessential moment of every discussion about Part Numbers. Few months ago, I shared my thoughts about why to use intelligent part numbers in 21st century. There are 3 reasons why intelligent numbers are good – independent from software; self-defined; can be used across multiple systems.

The traditional way is to think about Par Number as identifier in PDM, PLM or ERP system. This is still a valid assumption. However, manufacturing is getting more connected these days. As a result of this an increased number of people and related services can be interested to use part numbers outside of the system for variety of reasons – design contractors, suppliers, contract manufacturers, customer service teams, e-commerce website, etc. To hook them all to a single PLM system can be not feasible. It will might force to review the way systems are using part numbering schema.

One of the way to think about it is think about data and not specific numbering schema. Here is a link to one of my earlier posts from last year speaking about. The idea of disconnecting part numbers and classification from a specific application is one that I want to point out today.

My attention was caught by the development of Common Part Library (CPL) by Octopart. Check more about CPL here. Octopart is a software outfit developing search engine for electronic parts and helping engineers to build electronic products. The following blog post speaks about introducing CPL Part Numbers. It appears to be an interesting problem. You might think eventually, you search Parts and getting Manufacturing Part Numbers. But Octopart engineers had a different opinion and decided to invent so called – generic part, which is in my view an approach similar to how how most of PLM vendors did in the past. The following passage explains guidance Octopart engineers used to develop new part number schema.

The MPNs are not always easy to interpret, and as we developed a scheme for identifying generic parts in the CPL, these are the lessons we took from the MPN naming schemes: 1/ The part numbers should encode useful information. 2/ The part numbers should be readable without having to consult an external reference. 3/ The naming should be consistent across component types.

What I found interesting is how Octopart is using “soft” identification parameters to makes CPL Part Number meaningful for engineers search for parts. CPL part number is allowing to reference multiple parts without specifying manufacturing part number (MPN).

cpl-partnumbers-octopart

What is my conclusion? Octopart CPL approach to define meaningful part numbers is representing an interesting approach to build relationships between physical components manufactured by multiple vendors, but in fact can be interchanged under specific circumstances. You may think about it as “alternate” part in PLM solutions, but I’d consider Octopart use case generic and broader. It is an interesting attempt to build identification beyond organizational boundaries, which can be very helpful to engineers, contractors and manufacturers these days. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Pictures credit Octopart blog.

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
22 August, 2021

Data is taking a central stage in everything that businesses do these days. You can hear about digital strategies and...

27 October, 2015

I like surveys. They can help you to discover what people think and motivate to make analysis. My attention was...

23 May, 2020

Peter Thiel is famous for his recommendations about how to build a monopoly. I recommend his book Zero to One....

19 December, 2020

Over the course of this week, I’ve been contacted offline and online by many people that wanted to discuss the...

31 October, 2013

The amount of data we produce is skyrocketing these days. Social web, mobile devices, internet of things – these are...

6 November, 2018

I’m attending PI PLMx Chicago these days. The event is organized by MarketKey, a UK based company with a mission...

16 February, 2016

Major pillars of enterprise software in every manufacturing company are represented by the silos – engineering, manufacturing planning, shop-flow control. Historically...

18 December, 2015

The Internet of Thing is coming and it capturing imagination and budgets of PLM vendors and manufacturing companies. Earlier this...

25 June, 2014

Search and information discovery is a big deal these days. Inspired by Google and other web search giants, we want...

Blogroll

To the top