Documenting vendor parts 1

[Desgal]

We are a gov't sub-contractor where the most common practice is to still issue internal control/part numbers based on drawing numbers. That is the only way to have a link between the drawing and part because it is not done in their database. So if I have a drawing for an item, yet the item retains it's vendor part number and is not re-identified with an internal control number based on the drawing, there is no way to know that an indivudual drawing for an item exists unless you manually put a column into the LOM that provides tracablilty between the drawing and the vendor part.

Does anyone ever have a problem with CM or engineers wanting you to create drawings for items that are being represented on a LOM and in company database by vendor part number? Is there something I am not doing right or some concept I am missing here? For instance...we buy a router, said router gets put on the LOM of the assembly that it is used in with vendor part number and inserted into parent assembly. The parent assembly will get a part number issued to it based on the drawing number since it is a custom "part", put most of the children will not. Engineers and CM insist that they do not want to track certain child items (like purchased router) using internal control numbers. Yet we will be in the middle of a design review, and if they don't see a drawing showing all the ports and the size of that router and software requiremtns they will flag me for that and insist a drawing gets made for that item. Yet,they don't want a vendor item control drawing -who's main purpose is to reissue an internal control number to that purchased item. They just want some sort of non controlling drawing recording key enternal and size features. Would this get done right in that parent assembly drawing?

Right now we just show thumbnail size models of each sub-component, where it goes in the standard rack type parent assembly and a LOM. No individual item is dimensioned or detailed at any high level though. Is the parent assembly drawing the place to show the sub-conponents in more detail, or is there some other non controlling drawing type that I can use to show the individual purchased items -yet not re-issue an internal control number based on that drawing?

I'm at a loss. ASME Y14 I've been reading over and over... pretty much if you are not re-identifying an item with an internal control number then a vendor item control drawing is not the correct drawing to use. ASME Y14 decision making tree keeps leading me to the end result of showing said item in it's "using assembly" drawing only. So I think that maybe the item just needs a clearer view and to be detailed more in it's parent assembly drawing that I am using it in to appease the design team, and that it does not get it's own seperately numbered drawing though. Any thoughts?

 

[3DDave]

I don't recall that a VICD requires one to reidentify a part. It functions to associate an internal part number to one or more vendor items that meet the requirements for the part. Some places just put a CAGE Code and part number on PLs for purchased parts. And then they get burned when the supplier changes some characteristic important to the design, but doesn't change their part number.

The VICD is to record the requirements the design has for an item so that if the vendor quits making it or changes how it is made, you can procure a replacement source/part and reject items that won't work.

Some places think a VICD is to copy the supplier's stated features. Some just put down a diagram/picture, a couple reference dimensions/values, and the vendor's part number. This is useless because it doesn't show what the item has to do. If it can't be used to reject parts that don't work, a drawing is useless.

If there is an item on the floor, there was a purchase order to buy it. The purchase order should be to fulfill a drawing requirement. Therefore you know that an item has a drawing associated with it.

I suppose confusion could be that any one purchased item could appear on any number of VICDs because the characteristics on each of the VICDs is different, even though the one item is currently suitable for all of them. A flat washer could be on one because of it's thickness, on another because of diameter, and on a third for electrical or thermal conductivity. It's one item that fulfills the needs of three VICDs, not three VICDs that describe the same item.

 

[Desgal]

Dote! Did I say re-identify? I did. I meant that they are not issuing an internal control number to the item based on the drawing. They are using the vendor part number on all documents and data bases, but then they want a drawing which shows a dimensioned model of the item along wiht whatever primary requirements the item has. So I feel they are breaking the system by doing this. If purchasing is given a vendor part number to order as the spec, and if the LOM shows that vendor part number, then the vendor part number IS the spec.

Having an individual vendor item drawing for any item you do not intend to track with a corresponding ICN is kinda useless. sounds like I am not crazy then and 3DDave agrees.

 

[MikeHalloran]

So you are being asked to produce what amounts to a VICD,
but you are also told to not call it a VICD,
and their insistence on using the vendor hardware part number to also identify the drawing means that some poor dumb bastard like me is going to come along in a new years and NOT EVEN REALIZE THAT THE STUPID DRAWING EXISTS, because there is no way to discriminate between the drawing and the object.

Just go ahead and do what the stupidoes in charge are telling you to do, and don't try to anticipate what sort of logistical nightmares it will catalyze, because poor dumb bastards like me have always made a living cleaning up after stupidoes like the ones running that company now, and I wouldn't want my friends to run out of work.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Desgal]

Yep. That about covers it Mike.