Part number as Item ID or as Item Name in Teamcenter

[ralinaresg]

Hello all,

We are in the process of transitioning into Teamcenter and I found myself wondering on what is the best practice (or common at least) when it comes to Item ID and Item Name. I am aware of this thread and I feel it needs some updating since 2010.

As is typical, my organization manages both internal parts (designed by us) and off the shelf parts (made by others). Currently we don't use any PLM system so internal parts are given a 6-digit Part Number and for external parts we use the supplier's part number. An exception to the latter would be parts that are supplier agnostic such as bolts, nuts, washers and other misc hardware. The names are given to the parts in an Attribute and to the OS filename.

Now, I believe the most common practice is to treat the Item ID as we are treating the OS filename. That is give it a PN if it is internal, and if not, use whatever descriptive name you desire. The part name is then used for a "descriptive part name" and the "part description" for a lengthier and more detailed description. Currently we don't have or use the "part description" and frankly, I am trying to think whether it is necessary.

To the question. I am tempted to have the Item ID as a 6 digit number that is created by TC and let that be some sort of Database tool or unique identifier for things that are internal, external or whatever other dataset we may want to manage in TC (like code), make the Item Name be the Part Number if the part is internal and a descriptive name for anything else (basically following the same OS filename rules listed above, but allowing symbols that are otherwise not supported) and the "Item Description" be a simple part description. Is this a bad idea? Why would I want to make the Item ID match Part Number?

Thank you all,

RL

 

[cowski]

I've been through 2 TC integration projects at 2 different companies. Company 1 used the OS file name as the TC ID; company 2 let TC generate the ID numbers and assigned the company part number to the PART_NAME attribute.

I suggest using the file name as the ID unless you have a good reason not to. The NX UI will default to showing the TC ID number wherever part information is shown or needed for input. Using TC generated ID's will essentially leave you with a dual part numbering scheme and you will need to use the TC search to convert between them. Company 2 had good reasons for doing it that way, but it made working with the CAD data a bit more awkward.

www.nxjournaling.com

 

[ralinaresg]

Thank you cowski,

We have reasons. I am not sure if strong ones. One reason is the item ID is limited in number and type of characters. My preference would have been to give an internal PN to everything (including OTS parts like fasteners). We ended up doing the item ID and the Part Number be different, and the latter is where we apply to the Part Name. We also considered using alternate IDs. Now that I have been testing it, I see your point. I was able to enable visibility of both name and Item ID in many instances, but having to do "advance search" when looking for a PN is indeed an inconvenience. Another issue is that it doesn't check that the PN are unique. This is what bothers me the most. Is there any other drawback you can think of?

 

[Toost]

The general rule we have is to not have "intelligence" in the ID and, for your sleeping quality, do not define the Item ID in another system.
Assign the Item ID in Teamcenter and let Teamcenter be the master of the Item ID then use name and description for the "human logic".
the searches in teamcenter can be preconfigured for easier searching on the things we , humans , think simpler to remember.

One company I visited had the rule that when they released something for production , the revision MUST be 00, but because their products were very complex and underwent several revisions during development, testing , prototypes etc, ALL Items had to be renamed (The Item ID..) before release such that the first revision was 00.
To make things worse, the Item ID's should be in series, (similar to 88-678, 88-679, 88-680 etc) and the number-master-log was a completely different system.
This led to that the designers had to try imagine/guess how many parts should be included in the design, then reserve these "ID's in that other system, then using pen and paper copy Item ID , Name, description etc from that system to Teamcenter.
I do not think I need to say this is unproductive.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[ralinaresg]

I agree with your point Tomas. Right now the Item ID is being generated by Teamcenter, but it would've been nice to make that the part number. We are using another system to generate the part number. I feel like, implicit in your comment you are saying that the Item ID should be the same as the part number and that it MUST be autogenerated. We are a small organization too, with very limited knowledge (and frankly very little interest) in BMIDE to make a custom rule for item ID. We also had Siemens quote the work but it came in quite pricey. I have been working in getting the Item ID rule to work, but currently my BMIDE for some reason is giving an error during a template deployment and I haven't been able to get the right person in GTAC to help.

 

[Toost]

I think that , if we can live with an autogenerated number as the part number, it will make us sleep better and spend our working hours on designing instead of matching numbers between systems.
One department I have been working with did a "in-between" solution, they let Teamcenter autogenerate the Item Id "abc123456" but then they manually added "-xxxx" to that , ( abd123456-0100) where the last four indicated things like assembly instructions, Electrical connections, detail design, casting etc.
One thing to remember is that Teamcenter is the "searching master", you can search on "any criteria", such as aliases for descriptions etc etc. and you can build custom searches to reuse "this odd searching combination".
Another department I have met are trying to make the Item ID a combination of a given number and description. This is a dead end, suddenly you have 40 items which begin with the same number which you cannot distinguish between...

Regards,
Tomas