nomenclature

Jul 6 2018

A Rose By Any Other Name,… Don’t Even Try!

Whether you name a company, a product, a machine, a person, a role,… or serialize units in production, you create a key to which information about an entity can be attached and through which it can be retrieved. When you do it, you should think through the different ways the name will be used and, once you have made your choice, stick with it.

These are obvious principles, but not always respected in manufacturing organizations.  It hadn’t occurred to me to post about this until I saw, in yesterday’s New York Times, an unintelligible tennis women champions’ board from Wimbledon, from photographer Duncan Grove,  with annotations  to decrypt it:

The simple, straightforward choice would have been to designate these winners by the full names under which they were referenced in the media and list multiple winners under the same name for all wins. The board maintainers at Wimbledon could also have asked the honorees what they wanted to be called. Their marital status is irrelevant and, if married, so are their obscure husbands’ last names and initials, particularly for the women who won both before and after marriage, or had several spouses. The key takeaway: when naming, forget obsolete traditions.

#Nomenclature

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Sep 2 2014

Are Part Numbers Too Smart for Their Own Good? | ENGINEERING.com

[…] technology experts are warning that the use of such descriptive part numbers is not necessarily so “smart,” and that they could drag down productivity in today’s fast-changing manufacturing environments. A smarter tactic, they assert, is to employ auto-generated “insignificant” or “non-intelligent” part numbers and let information about the part reside in a database. […]

Source: www.engineering.com

See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing

Michel Baudin‘s comments:
For details on the reasons to get rid of so-called “smart” part numbers, see  Why “Smart” part numbers should be replaced with keys and property lists.

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Feb 20 2013

Should an auto parts plant use “smart” part numbers?

Mumin Vatansever, from TKG Otomotiv in Turkey, asked the following question:

I am a newly graduated production control engineer in an auto factory.
We are trying to organize our system according to the SAP.  We really do not know whether we should use smart numbers or not.  We do not know what the advantages and disadvantages of using them ? Also if it is possible could you please give me a smart code example ?

55774 05020 is a part number we have, and its process steps are as follows:

  1. Scissor
  2. Press machine
  3. Weld
  4. Packing
  5. Delivery

Technically, there is no doubt that “smart” part numbers should be replaced with keys and property lists.

I am not expert in SAP, but I don’t believe it restricts you in these matters. Manufacting Part Numbers (MPN) should be unique and short, with all information stored in other fields, either standard in SAP or user-defined. Being unique is a part number’s main job, for obvious reasons. Being short matters if they ever have to read by humans. Sequences of 5 uppercase letters and numbers give you 60 million possible unique IDs, which is probably enough for your needs. Avoid case-sensitive IDs, because people will confuse items 78De5 and 78DE5. 

What worries me is your statement that you are a “newly graduated production control engineer.” I don’t want my advice to get you in trouble. If your bosses are like 99% of the manufacturing professionals I know, they have been trained to believe in “smart” part numbers and are uncomfortable with the thought that they are an obsolete legacy of the pencil-and-paper age. You may have to go along and implement one anyway.

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