Thanks everyone for all of the good suggestions. Even though I thought someone would have developed a part numbering system that had some relationship to the actual piping components, apparently not. I had remembered a piping model system that was being developed that had such of a system, but...
I am looking for an intelligent numbering system to be used for the material control of piping materials (pipe, elbow, flnages, etc). What I am looking for is a numbering criteria that depicts what the material actually is, ie pipe could be PPcs0240... for 2 inch, carbon steel, schedule 40...