Drawing numbering system 14

[Adrian2]

Dear Folks;

Back in the old days, a number for each drawing sheet was quite sufficient. Now with seperate drawing, part and assembly files I was wondering if anyone can share a good numbering/recording system for keeping track of drawings.

At the moment I record my drawing, part and assembly numbers in a spreadsheet which allows me to search or sort my work for particular information. But of course this is not an optimum solution for large numbers of drawing files.

Best Regards

Adrian D

 

[SBaugh]

Back at an old job I used to work for using SW. What we did is we added part number and name to the parts, assemblies, and drawings. We listed the part or assembly the drawing referenced.

XXXX-XXXX-1Shaft.sldprt
XXXX-XXXX-2ShaftAssembly.sldasm

XXXX-XXXX-1.slddrw - referencing XXXX-XXXX-1Shaft.sldprt
XXXX-XXXX-2.slddrw - referencing XXXX-XXXX-2ShaftAssembly.sldasm

Giving them a number and a name help us determine what files were what when searching for them. We also place them into special folders on the server.

The draw back was looooong file names on some files. Which could sometimes make it hard to list in the space provided on the drawing.

As SW advanced, my ideas started changing on how we could better use these advantages.

The use of Custom properties and other things came to mind....but I left the company and started working for someone else. So I never got to finish.


That's about how it was then. Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
credence69@REMOVEhotmail.com

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.3dmca.com

*When in doubt always check the help*

 

[EdDanzer]

Your question really is about part numbering, and revision numbering. I attended a class about this call “Engineering Documentation and Control” shortly after starting to use SolidWorks. The problem is complex and there is no one best solution yet. Having tried several different methods of my own, and work with others companies systems.
I have some suggestion. The disclaimer is I hate part numbering and tracking of inventory. We have created over 20,000 SolidWorks files in 7 years, and stock over 2,000 different part numbers in a company with 3 employees that build small 1-20pc lot quantities of part and assemblies.
With that said, Try a semi significant or license plate type alpha-numeric number system with 7 or less characters. Assign a part number to each part or assembly that is unique, and put a description in the file properties. Store the drawing under the part number, SolidWorks does this by default. Do a “file save as” and assign a new part number to any revision that is not backwards compatible rather than using revisions of the original by adding a rev. number. Be sure the someone destroys the paper drawings when the project is complete and everything is updated from shop changes.
We have been using a six character semi significant numbering system with Excel to record what part numbers are used and their description. This is a poor method when searching for an item. To date I haven’t decided the best way to track the information about a part, or assembly.

 

[BillRND]

A PDM system takes alot of the burden off your shoulders. SolidWorks offers a number of different choices and it's worth looking into.

 

[MadMango]

I'm a big supporter of non-significant part numbers. This means that the number can't tell you anything about what you are looking at. You can't tell the difference between part number 12345 or 54321. This means that you have to rely on another system (PDM, ERP, MRP, ect...) to track things.

If you are worried about drawings, parts and assemblies having the same part numbers, I don't think it's an issue. After all, the file types have different file extensions. If you want to find a part, you look for .SLDPRTs, if you want an assembly, you look for a .SLDASM, ect.

If you are working in a small shop, and don't have any other tracking software for your parts, then a semi-significant part numbering method might work for you... in the short term. As you start to increase your design work and reliance in SW, you will find that your semi-significant part numbers will have to get longer and longer, making things even more difficult to control.

The company I currently work for uses a 5 digit non-significant part numbering method. We have over 15 different product lines, some of which have multiple configurations (commerical and private use versions). We have about 30k SW parts and assemblies, and have been using SW since SW96+. "The attempt and not the deed confounds us."

 

[EdDanzer]

I have looked at PDM software ever since I’ve used SolidWorks. There can be check in and check out problems when working with assemblies over 200 parts. One major one for me is the check in and out time. Although I haven’t look at it in the last 2 years my concern now is how long it would take to implement.

MadMango,
You are correct about the semi significant part numbering system being a pain. If and when I change I will use a 5 digit non-significant numbering system. With a small company there is a cost to do this, and right now we cannot afford to change.

 

[Adrian2]

Dear Ed, Scott and Mad Mango;

Thank you for your helpful replies. I like the idea of a six digit non significant part number. I was hoping SW might have some ability to provide additional fields for drawing information that could be accessed in SW explorer but I guess you have to buy the PDM software for this ability.

Many thanks

Adrian D.

 

[EdDanzer]

Adrian,
You can put information in the custom tab by clicking file the properties. We use description, created, updated, material, vendor, and weight. We use these items in the BOM. This information can be searched through SolidWorks Explore's Property Search. I may be case sensitive.

 

[skills]

Ok, now this may sound like a silly question; but, why would anyone prefer a non-signifigant numbering system to a system where information is encoded into a part number. I would think that a part should provide information to merit its very existance. I don't fool with inventory; so I don't deal with this type of stuff. I would think a non-signifigant numbering system would require someone to use a primer to determine what the part is associated with. I just thought that was counter-intuitive to desire a number that is meaningless; but, I'm quessing the number is used in a way that lends itself to this. I'm speaking strictly as a consumer of data when I say I prefer to buy stuff from people whose part numbers are "feature encoded" like Numation,Camozzi, etc. Is managing non-signifigant part numbers really easier? And Why? sPLain Lucy!

 

[EdDanzer]

Skills,
The problem with part numbers that mean something is once the person who developed them, or their mind is gone the reason for the number is gone. We designed a semi-significant numbering system in 1997, today a lot of the numbers mean nothing to me. Finding a specific part is just as difficult with any numbering system after not using the item for a year or two.
I actually spent over $10,000.00 to develop a software to find information during 1999 and 2000. NOT a search engine. A person searches when there lost and don’t have a clue. Finding something requires remembering where it is. The difficulty with software to find things is you have to give structure to unstructured data in a way that jogs your memory and leads you down the correct path. This path becomes an n-dimensional tree structure or 3D map with clues along the way. My beta software used XML and didn’t work well, so that project is on hold.

 

[StarrRider]

I have worked as a job shopper in a lot of companies. A large percentage of them have numbering systems with intelligence added into them. There is nothing wrong with having an intelligent numbering system providing an Index is included and there is a system for handling natural growth problems.

It is the growth problems that make an intelligent numbering systems hard to work with. Most of the time the originator of the system tries to make the system as smart as possible, adding sub-category after sub-category and doesn't think hard enough about what will happen after 4 or 5 years of growth. This makes the name of the originator of a poorly designed systems to be remembered. People will use it frequently, along with adjectives like Stupid, Dumb-A$$, and Idiot. A lot of people really hate the problems these systems can acquire.

Consider an index with a general category for Bearings, so all Bearings in this system could have a part number starting with 123x-xxx. In the index there are subcategories for Bushings, Ball, Air, Linear, and Sleeve, Etc.

Now we need a part number for a new Clutch Bearing and all of the 123x sub-categories are used. We can do one of two things, either ignore the intelligence or we can assign a new category. In defense of the first case - Hay, the Clutch Bearing does have ball bearings (at least the first one did). In the second instance, the Bushings/Bearings will get two have two numbers (123x and 456x).

In either case, the reason behind the system is being subverted. That reason is - The longer a person works with the system - The more numbers are remembered and the need to look them up is reduced. An Old-Hand know where to go while New-Bees spend a lot of time looking things up.

Some thoughts that do work.

If you do create an intelligent system, try to refrain from adding too much intelligence to it. Take Screws as an example; It seems reasonable to separate Screws into their Inch / Metric versions. It also seems reasonable to separate the various kinds of screws; BHCS, SHCS, FHCS, HHCS, Etc (except that there are a LOT of different kinds of Screws Categories to be accounted for and each one gets multiplied by 2 for the Inch/Metric versions. It also makes sense for those categories to be very similar (1010-xxx for Metric BHCS and 1011 for Inch BHCS) except that most of them will never be used. So don't separate them into the Inch/Metric versions (allow the file name to do that). Also - Try to add an OTHER or MISC Sub-Categories for special items. There are a lot of fasteners that are readily available on the market today that were not available 5 or 10 years ago.

Different companies do the same things in different ways. I know one that has a single numbering system but uses a key in the part number to indicate P/M/F (Purchase / Modify / Fabricate) status. Another only has Purchased or Fabricated parts but uses a different numbering system for each of them.

Personally, I liked the latter system the best. They did have an intelligent system but they left a lot of room in it for growth. It used xxxx-xxxx part numbers for Purchased Parts and a xxxxxx-xxx part numbers for Fabricated Parts. They did have an intelligent system for the Fabricated Parts but the logic behind it was cumbersome and didn't make sense with SolidWorks. One of the nice things about the Fab Parts system was that it allowed similar parts to have similar part numbers. A good example might be a RH/LH mirrored parts or parts where dimensions could be easily tabulated. This quite often produced a cost savings by reducing programming time down in the machine shop. It also made adding a new part revision almost painless.

A Directory system should also be created and it should be almost identical to the numbering systems. On this computer I use the Subst command to generate a drive that duplicates the Mapped drives on the Network at work. My X Drive points to my Fabricated Parts Directory and my Y Drive points to my Purchase Parts Directory.

File Names - For Fabricated Parts are based on the 'PartNumber - Noun, Verb, Verb' standard. For Purchased Parts it is 'Noun, Verb, Verb - PartNumber'. The reason for the difference is that Fabricated Parts are almost always referenced by their part number while Purchased Parts are not. Most of the time Purchase Parts are found by their description and not by their part number (Windows Explorer sorts them by filenames and allows drag and drop into an assembly). A Screw example would be 'Screw, BHCS, M3x12, Black Oxide - 1234-0025'

Many of my Purchased and Fabricated Parts are actually Assembly Files. An example of this might be a cylinder that has motion and is created from 3 or 4 different parts (a Cylinder, Rod, Clevis, and a Pin). The file names of the Parts is always identical to the name of the Assembly file with a descriptor added to the end.

Oh, by the way. You will find that the fastest and easiest way to modify SW Properties and Custom Properties (not sure about Configuration Specific Properties) is to use Windows Explorer. R-Click on a file and select Properties.

Lee

 

[StarrRider]

I think I should expand on this paragraph a little.

File Names - For Fabricated Parts are based on the 'PartNumber - Noun, Verb, Verb' standard. For Purchased Parts it is 'Noun, Verb, Verb - PartNumber'. The reason for the difference is that Fabricated Parts are almost always referenced by their part number while Purchased Parts are not. Most of the time Purchase Parts are found by their description and not by their part number (Windows Explorer sorts them by filenames and allows drag and drop into an assembly). A Screw example would be 'Screw, BHCS, M3x12, Black Oxide - 1234-0025'

Part numbers are generally added on an as needed basis so a slightly longer version of the screw mentioned above could easily be 1234-0250. If the part number was first like it is in the Fab Parts then a database program or a table would have to be accessed constantly. By placing the description first the next size should be very near the original part.

Lee

 

[lejeanmi]

Lee, first thanks for the very good tips.
You said:
"An Old-Hand knows where to go while New-Bees spend a lot of time looking things up."
So here is a little help for the New-Bees
The part number format we use where I work is XXX-XXXX-XXX. The first 3 digits define what kind of part it is (bolt, shaft. etc.).
To make part numbers a little more meaningful the first three digits stand for the first three letters of the part as spelled on the keys of your telephone. Ex: a Shaft number is 742-XXXX-XXX.
If you get another part that would start with the same number, you just pick the next number available. Ex: Spring: 777, Sprocket: 778.
I found that to be very useful.

Jean-Michel

 

[EdDanzer]

The down side of part numbers over 7 digits is they require a lot of label space if you bar code the item. Other people using your products may have to reassign a number to work with their inventory system.

 

[StarrRider]

Lejeanmi

I did like your phone number trick when I first read it. Then I made the mistake of playing with it a little.

Going from a word to a part number is easy, but going from a part number to a word is a royal PITA. Using your 742-xxxx-xxx example produces
PGA, PGB, PGC, PHA, PHB, PHC, PIA, PIB, PIC,
QGA, QGB, QGC, QHA, QHB, QHC, QIA, QIB, QIC,
RGA, RGB, RGC, RHA, RHB, RHC, RIA, RIB, RIC,
SGA, SGB, SGC, SHA, SHB, SHC, SIA, SIB, SIC
The problem I have is that even with the entire list sitting in front of me, Shaft is hard to see. That might be just me, but there it is. You probably don't have a problem with it but I think that’s because your familiarity with the system. I have to admit that I got hung up on PGA (Acronym used in electronics) and I spotted RIB for Ribbon before I ever got down to Shaft. There might be other valid products in there but I could not see them, unless you know where we can purchase some Star Trek Phasers.

Something that you might want to consider, download the ANSI abbreviations and edit it to create an index if you don't already have one.

To me, it would be simpler to use a straight 3 letter Alphanumeric key for this. That would eliminate all of the 3 and 4 letter combinations and Shaft readily comes to (my) mind with a part number like SHA-xxxx-xxx.

 

[StarrRider]

EdDanzer

I just looked at the bar coding on a bunch of food products in my pantry. They all have a 10-character part number.

I am curious about the logic because I have worked for a couple of OEM’s and haven’t seen it applied in any of them. A fast look at some of the larger distributors produced the following:
Carr Lane – 7 to 10 characters (not counting –s)
Cole-Parmer – 9 characters (not counting –s)
Digikey - 9 to 15? characters (not counting –s)
Lee Springs - 9 to 10 characters (not counting –s)
McMaster Carr – 9 characters (not counting –s)

In most of the companies that I have worked for, a company specific number is assigned to a part and it rarely has any relationship to the manufactures part number. The manufacturers part number will be recorded and used for reordering but that’s about all. A couple of companies did use the manufactures part number without any reassignment but those companies had part number problems constantly. Parts from different companies having the identical numbers, very LONG part numbers (Try using SMC part numbers, some are 20 / 30 characters long).

Lee

 

[EdDanzer]

StarrRider,
My McMaster-Carr Catalog 108 has 7 digits for the ordering numbers, Grainger has 5 digits, Allied Electronics has 7. The number of digits in a numbering system that a company uses in their catalog doesn’t mean it is the best. Companies may be using legacy systems to save the cost of translating to a new system.
When a business is starting from scratch they need to look at the big picture, what is the down stream cost of the system chosen.
The biggest reason for a smaller numbering systems is to reduce error in reading and writing the part number. In a shop environment when people type or write they will have an error rate of about 1 digit per 50 digits documented. In an office environment it goes up to about 1 per 1000 keystrokes. This is why most consumer products are bar coded, this bar code is used for data collection to eliminate keystroke error. You should ask a purchasing agent if there is a greater chance of ordering the incorrect item if there is longer part numbers when handed a handwritten note. Worse yet try reading a part number off a label that has a bunch of numbers. I have been working on a machine with Allen Bradley servo drives. They use a 16 digit number on the motor tag that is very small so they can get it on the tag. I miss read both motor tags, During phone support we wasted 10 minutes just over the part number error.
If you look strictly at the cost of data quality errors, it is one of businesses largest costs that should not happen. When there is information in more than one place you must have people manually update the information between them the larger the part number the greater the chance of error.
These data manipulation errors cost real money. Not only is there time loss, there is usually freight costs as well.

 

[lejeanmi]

StarrRider,
I like your idea of having the first 3 letters of the part as the beginning of the part number, SHA-XXXX-XXX.
But what happen when you have two parts that start with the same 3 letters, like Cart and Cartridge? I guess we can use Synonyms. The other thing is that using letters (vs numbers) in a part number can double the length of its barcode.
There is obviously no "one solution fit all" when it comes to assigning part numbers. A bolt manufacturer will have different part numbers requirements than an auto maker.
If you are really interested in the topic here is a link to good paper on Part Numbering System Format from Dave Perton thesis:

http://www.geocities.com/d_perton/app.html

 

[StarrRider]

Lejeanmi

This is the growth problem I was talking about. It is natural for people to want to add subcategories so that each products will fit into it's own little bracket. In the xxxx-xxxx system I mentioned before, a new category would be added each time a new product was added with a slightly different description. This is fine except that eventually you will run out of slots for your subcategories.

In your Cart / Cartridge problem, the question is whether a subcategory is really needed. I know it’s natural for structured minds like ours to want everything nice and tidy but is it really necessary? Is the annoyance of seeing a dozen Carts in a category that contains a couple thousand Cartridges worth providing subcategories?

If it is, then lets define the system a little more. It is by default AAA-xxxx where the first 3 letters are the same as the parts name and only the digits 0-9 are used for the x’s. Each CAR product has 9,999 but if you replace the leading x with a letter (not using I, J, L, O, or Q) so you have your original 9,999 parts with an additional 21 subcategories from AAA-Axxx to AAA-Zxxx and each has 999 possible parts.

The only problem with this approach is that if the first part placed into a category would own 9,999 possible part numbers while a subcategory would only own 999. So if your dozen Carts were the first in there would not be enough room for a couple thousand Cartridges. While an ECO would take care of this it really isn’t needed if you keep an index. Allow the Carts the first 999 parts (from CAR-0001 to CAR-0999) and add a subcategory to the index for your Cartridges starting at CAR-1001.

 

[StarrRider]

EdDanzer

The following are 3 McMaster Carr P/N’s taken from their web-based catalog: 8749K11 (PVC Tubing), 5463K367 (Barb Fitting), & 92316A550 (Hex Flanged Screw) - I could not find a 10-digit P/N but I believe I have seen them in the past. I do have to agree with you that this is not the best system. That is not because of the number of digits but because even with so many digits in use, additional information has to be provided with a number of products. The PVC Tubing is a good example of this because a cut length is required.

I don’t mean to be argumentative. The fact is that I agree with the majority of what you have said. It is just that you seem to keep insisting that the number of digits in a system is more important than anything else. I cannot agree with that, possibly because I have worked for too many companies with poorly designed systems that were very hard to work with. In that category I have to include non-intelligent system, because they require a lookup (either by a database, a drawing, or from a manual) each and every time a part is needed or referenced. They steal time and productivity from every person in the company.

Many companies have created intelligent documentation systems with varying degrees of success. It is possible that they ALL work, but success has to be measured by their ease of use and the number of exception that are required.

So what does work and why? Where does an intelligent system work and make sense? Where does it make more sense to use a non-intelligent system? Are there any viable methods for limiting the number of digits in a system? I know there are and I have my own opinions. Even the example you provided earlier poses questions that were never gone into. You spent a lot of money on a failed system but what was wrong with it? Was it simply because an index was not created and maintained or were there other problems with it?

Lee