Teamcenter, Part Numbering and Standard Parts

[bfleck]

Folks,
Just want to get peoples opinions and experiences with Teamcenter, part numbering and standard parts.

In my company and like others, every part must have a part number. Teamcenter automatically assigns the numbers for us. However, when it comes to standard parts and perhaps Part families, I wonder what is the best approach. I dont think bolts/screws should have company assigned part numbers and think that bearings should also be number independent. After all a bearing usually has a manufacturer part number stamped on it and when in CAD world, it is easier to search and read a description for standard parts rather than irrelevant part numbers. When you need a bolt you search for Bolt, Socket Head, 1/2" etc.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

 

[ewh]

This issue has more to do with configuration control than TeamCenter.
Every company I have worked for used numbers for everything, even if the number was only an in-house stock number.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - [small]Thomas Jefferson [/small]

 

[hudson888]

You can set it up in Teamcenter so that there are more than one stream of valid part numbers. For bolt and nuts we use mainly part families created mostly outside of Teamcentre before we started using it. So we assigned them a different stream of part numbers in Teamcentre and imported them. You'll probably have to get a hold of the Teamcentre system manager to get the numbers assigned and help with importing the files, but that's how it can be done.

The idea is that your company part numbers represent your own designs and the fasteners are purchased parts which could be ordered perhaps from several equivalent suppliers. A word of warning to specify your fasteners reasonably well, all nuts and bolts may not be created equal, so don't leave it to the purchasing guys to decide they may just buy the cheapest and get the wrong ones for the job.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[DavidTolsma]

There are a couple of thoughts on this. First is Teamcenter is a database, so the numbers are irrelevant. But for companies the number means more then just a number, so intelligent or smart numbers are used.

I think of it if the company was mine, what would I do? I would use a company number for a bolt, but the part would be a requirement for a type of fastener. If they where to use vendor 'A' then that would have a cross reference to that vendor and their part number in the database. When vendors come and go, this part number can be versioned and use the new vendor.

It can get really complicated and legal issues require this to be changed. But Keep It Simple.

-Dave Tolsma
Tolsnet LLC

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

http://groups.google.com/group/plm-exchange/

 

[hudson888]

Interesting comment from Dave I don't quite understand where the legal issues come in.

We use our own numbering system for fasteners as I mentioned above, but it is a different number from those used for the mainstream of our product designs. What it refers to is a bolt of a certain size, thread and material spec that may even be related to say a bolt's ultimate tensile strength. What this really becomes is a fastener specification that allows purchasing to procure any of a range of products that meet or exceed our engineering requirements. I have seen the same sort of system used even in the rarified field of aircraft design, the only difference there being that the fasteners as they're delivered are recorded with a batch number for tracability. I know that Automotive OEM's use similar specifications in their engineering systems but as to tracability I'm not aware of the same kinds of requirements being followed.

I wonder how that compares and how any of what I suggested creates the sort of legal problems that you refer to.

I certainly accept your point that part numbers in teamcenter can be treated as irrelevant, but many organsiations prefer to structure their part numbering system according to project and perhaps even codify it so that common modules have a regualar numbering breakdown. Others prefer always to use odds and evens for left and right handed parts. If you do any of these things or just don't want fasteners to be easily confused with other parts like me you may prefer to use an obviously different set of numbers. As long as numbers are valid and not used eleswhere you should be able to assign them manually within teamcenter. Having had the expereince of working both ways I know that either is possible.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[DavidTolsma]

Aerospace does not allow substitutions, If you have a part number XYZ you had better use XYZ. Even if there is another part number that is exactly the same, you can't do that, with out a change. and I'm sure some testing and qualifications need to be done to certify this change.

Automotive, needs to keep track of what part goes on which vehicle and when. If there was a crash or lawsuit the part that was the cause needs to be verified and who signed off of it and the testing it went through to approve it. Any changes to that would also create a verification process.

Other areas are a little more relaxed about this type of change. Any product that can cause bodily injury and has money is open for lawsuit. Then there is ITAR, which I'm not sure how that would play out if numbers change.



-Dave Tolsma

http://Tolsnet.com/jobs

http://groups.google.com/group/NX_CAX/

http://groups.google.com/group/plm-exchange/

 

[hudson888]

In my experience there is no industry that allows for two same part numbers even NX does not tolerate that situation. With specification based systems it gets to be a moot point whether part numbers actually change since they're usually applied using a versioning system, something that NX also supports. With a versioning system you have a core part number that stays the same and a version that is used to distinguish between situations where the design or specification be it material or other requirement is changed in any way.

Now as for Aircraft (I shouldn't say Aerospace because the Space part is usually military and has a rather different risk expectation and outcome), to the best of my knowledge a traceability regime in most countries around the world. That means that there is paperwork kept for batches of fasteners from source through to the end of part lifetime. Every aspect from raw material through production and installation are recorded somewhere and kept for a specified time beyond the service lifetime. Without wanting to give legal advice I kind of know this from experience.

I was curious as to what you said about Automotive because my understanding is that the traceability requirement is a little lower in that the specification and supplier chain are usually recorded to deflect possible legal issues but that post event discovery takes more precedence in those cases. Whereas the Aircraft guys argue that we did all the due diligence according to requirements in a preventative sense, the Automotive case usually revolves around finding fault after the fact. Again not legal advice just what I have seen in industry.

We have done some in house legal courses on this in the affected industries and I'm still saying that they use different part number systems for fasteners and mainstream designs. In either industry the mainstream parts have revision levels or versions to control design changes, whereas in some places the fasteners aren't treated the same way as regards change control. In at least one company not treating fasteners the same way leads them to change part numbers entirely whenever they change the design, but this is also tied up in the fact that they have global part catalogues so changes occasionally affect one site and not the other, perhaps due to supply issues, even if geometry stays the same. Fasteners become quite a problem to manage if you don't keep abreast of the issues, the large company to which I referred wound up with quite a messy system due to historical issues where things weren't thought through very well.

Cheers

Hudson

 

[SiW979]

We use 'off the clock' teamcentre numbers for most parts but as pointed out in an earlier comment, you can configure teamcentre to handle different fomats of part numbers. e.g. an off the clock number for a bracket that someone has designed would be 332/E1234 etc. But we have a massive library of standard parts which conform to a different standard, which are all documented on line and each variant follow a numeric order. e.g

Standard Flat Washer

1407/0001 (Plain M4 Washer)
1407/0001Z (Zinc Plated M4 Washer)
1407/0001D (Dacromet Plated M4 Washer)

1407/0002 (Plain M6 Washer)
1407/0002Z (Zin Plated M6 Washer)
1407/0002D (Dacromet Plated M6 Washer)

We have literally thousands of these numbers covering bolts, nuts, hydraulic fittings, basically anything where parts are created using part famillies. We have a Standard parts folder which contains all the part familly master parts, this way if an engineer needs to find an M12 X 120 bolt, they need not go siffting through the standards for the part number, they can simply add the familly master and then through a process of elimination by selecting the difference values from the available attributes find the correct part in a few seconds.

All the part families are controled by JCB Group Research, so if someone needs a non-standard fastener that is not currently in use, they log a helpdesk call detailing what they requrie and one of the CAD/PLM admin team create the part and release it. It works very well for us.

Best regards

Simon (NX4.0.4.2 MP4 - TCEng 9.1.3.6.c)

http://www.jcb.com

Life shouldn't be measured by the number of breaths you take, but rather how many times it's taken away...

 

[bfleck]

..."We have a Standard parts folder which contains all the part familly master parts, this way if an engineer needs to find an M12 X 120 bolt, they need not go siffting through the standards for the part number, they can simply add the familly master and then through a process of elimination by selecting the difference values from the available attributes find the correct part in a few seconds."...

After talking with out systems guy, we though the techniques above handles standard parts quite well. The standard parts still need a number, but this number is in effect numb when it comes to search and add the standard parts into an assembly.

Thanks for the thoughts

 

[hudson888]

Simon,

My thoughts exactly. How it presents in Teamcenter is that when you go to save as or create a new part then you're presented with a list of possibilities from part to drawing maybe machining is one you have, and to that is a series of numbers added that are used for fasteners. I suppose that may be what you mean by off the clock. Anyway you can get either the next free number or type a number combination that you know to be valid for a particular kind of fastener. In that way assuming you automatically took 1407/0001 for your M4 washer you might have to type 1407/0001Z to force it to use that number for the zinc coated version. I suspect that you force it to use that number for all of them most of the time in fact.

Bfleck,

Try using part families where possible and set up a pallet for adding the fasteners to your design. I worked for an company where we set up pallets for most things that we use repeatedly so that we didn't have to look up catalogues on a regular basis. having fasteners, pneumatic and hydraulic fittings all set up in the system saved us a lot of time.

Best Regards

Hudson

 

[SiW979]

I knocked up a Power Point Show to help explain the process of adding standards parts which have been created as a parts family which will hopefully highlight the benefits of creating parts via the part families function.

Best regards

Simon (NX4.0.4.2 MP4 - TCEng 9.1.3.6.c)

http://www.jcb.com

Life shouldn't be measured by the number of breaths you take, but rather how many times it's taken away...

 

[bfleck]

JCBCad
Nice presentation to illustrate.

I have already been using standard parts to create of series of similar parts and knew that it was the direction to go with standard parts. I was just concerned about the aspect of searching and adding the standard part to the assembly. It is nice that one can filter the list of part family attributes to get exactly what they need from a list of 1000's.

Out of curiousity, where did you get your standard parts from.

 

[SiW979]

Bfleck

We modelled them ourselves, and the numbers have just grown over the years. But if we ever get any big jobs, then we have 90 CAD users in one India who provide support to all our other divisions especially for the mundane tasks of creating part families etc.

Best regards

Simon (NX4.0.4.2 MP4 - TCEng 9.1.3.6.c)

http://www.jcb.com

Life shouldn't be measured by the number of breaths you take, but rather how many times it's taken away...

 

[hudson888]

Simon,

Nice presentation that is how we work with part families and pallets after the system is already put in place.
I wrote a bunch of stuff that was about creating the part numbers inside a Teamcenter environment to start with that I would suggest you have probably done in preparation and I would certainly add those to a pallet as you have done.

The configuration control issues that we were writing about really concern whether you have revisions to your fastener library or completely change the part number every time the design changes for any reason. That was where in the case of fasteners I more or less suggested that since the geometry is standard and won't change we often developed a specification to cover materials and coatings etc effectively pushing the configuration control issues to the purchasing guys who ultimately control the interface between BOM and supplier.

What your presentation reinforces is that for engineering use there is a neatness and efficiency to using a regular numbering system which suits pallets and part families under NX so that changing the part numbers is usually not desirable. In part that was the thrust of the point I was trying to make about expressing some freedom to purchase from different suppliers by recording those decisions where necessary elsewhere without affecting the CAD design.


Bfleck,

This looks the same either inside or outside of Teamcenter.