naming practice

[Blaze]

Hi All.


I have a question, that may be off-topic. Sorry in advance.


How do you name your parts and assemblies, if you have a lot of versions of one and the same item? And if a creation ofnew version of a part doesn't mean that you will not come back to one of the previous versions.


I have tryed just tonumber them consequently, but soon understand that i don't remember which of them is the last. I got sick of this mess. Please, help me.


Looking forward for your advices,


Eugenia.

 

[FishNut]

Blaze,


It may not seem like it now, but this is a really big decision. You live with it forever. I'm assuming here you're working for a business, not personal. We had a team of consultants help us out who had set up other businesses. I feel we still made a sight mistake. We incorporated a material number into our name. Problem is with steel costs skyrocketing, we change materials frequently. This causes renames of sometimes 1000's of parts. Whatever you decide, think it over good, perhaps involve several other people, especially manufacturing, think of how your company does business. There are purchased parts and manufactured parts. What about parts orders. Will you build plant routing into the number? Can manufacturing benefit from the number?

 

[AHA-D]

Long term naming can only be "stupid" numbering. You take any alfanumeric combination that's long enough to accomodate the most excentric amount of parts you can imagine and then go ahead. You can even let a computer decide for you at random.


Any other system is bound to burst at any time. If you decide to incorporate intelligence then sooner or later you find that you run out of positions for a given series, can't keep logic for production processes, have more variations than what will fit in the positions you did forsee, change or combine materials that were non existent before, ...


What you need is good documentation system that you can query to find e.g. all turned parts in aluminium used in food processing machines. Computers are very good at manipulating and searching through billions of lines of data.


I know, it's human to try to have "smart numbers", I built whole systems myself, but in the end they all fail, either partially or entirely. And like mentioned above : any attempt to catch material, production, machine type is bound to create renaming sessions or duplicates or inconsistencies.


You might attach a commercial name to a given abstract. It canbe easier forpeople to remember. But this name shouldn't be the name your parts system is based on.


In the same time I'm all in favour of giving meaningfull names when designing and renaming the project and its parts when finalised.


Also : filenames in Windows can have attributes (title, document number, revision, ...) that can be made visible in any explorer window. These can be incorporated in any dumb named file, giving the extra info we humans need. It's too bad that ProE does not live up to the Win naming and attribute settings.


PS Further reading : http://www.signumgroup.com/Why_Smart_Numbers_are_Dumb.pdf
Edited by: AHA-D

 

[Blaze]

FishNut,


I see, i was very optimistic thinking that there is a universal solution. There is not. Huh....


But i just need order. No material numbers in part names, a few materials. Just a mess of versions.


Do you think it is rational to have a separatename for the current model?I mean some additional indication.


Thanks in advance,


Eugenia.

 

[Joe Paul]

I use a 4 diget project number, followed by a4 diget file number, followed by an Alpha rev letter.


Project 1234


File 1XXX Assemblies, Parts 0XXX etc with a _A for rev A


Ex.12340015_C Then keep a Xcel BOM with images, revs, dates and descriptions

 

[dougr]

PS Further reading : http://www.signumgroup.com/Why_Smart_Numbers_are_Dumb.pdf

The guy who wrote this only seems to know about Requisitions, Purchase Orders, Invoices etc and jack about part numbering, BOMs, product structure etc so what is the relevance of this arcticle to this thread ??


Don't you guys have to have part numbers assigned ??


The main piece of advice I can give which no one else seems to be giving is adhere to the real product as closely as is sensible. (accurate and representative geometry, correct mps, assemblies structured aroundactual assembly processes, CAD parts & assembliesnamed for actual parts & assemblies).
Edited by: dougr

 

[giridhar_tech]

Hey people,
It may sound too basic, but As far as I do my part numbering, i keep it away from other effects
simple nine digit code

000 A00 000

a) XXX numerals defining project code
b) A00 First alphabet for whole assembly , then next two numerals defining sub assembly number.
c) 000 Numerals for component code.

any comments.

 

[Blaze]

AHA-D,


Thanks for your reply. I think that adding attributes by the means of Windows OS is not very convinient for me. And i am also sorry that ProE doesn't show parameters when in it's folder browser, it'll be very convinient. Or maybe i'm missing something and ProE can be configured to show parameters when in folder browser?


I see now, thanks to you and FishNut, that including in the file name such parameters as material and machine type results in lots of renamings. So i probably will not choose this style.

 

[Blaze]

Joe Paul,


Let me ask a question, please. Is your style convinient? And don't you tangle in your BOM?


dougr,


I'm trying to name my parts and assemblies keeping their meanings. But sometimes i have a number of different parts with similar but not identical functions and i just don't know how can i distinguish them. I have tryed to name such parts with synonyms, but soon i understand that i mix them.


Maybe i have not to avoid longer file names... How long do you think the name can be?Is it bad or goodto give parts and assemblies long names?

 

[robertib]

There is no easy naming conventions. What we do is to have a 5 digit number for the project, a 2 digit number for the designer and a 3 digit sequential number for the individual parts, replacing the first digit of the sequential number with A for assemblies.


ProE can only handle a 32 character filename, and can't have spaces (but can have underscores).


Forstandard components (such as screws) we use a database to keep track of the part numbers, which are different depending on what they are.

 

[SW]

We currently use a name and date format, NAMEYYYYMMDDAA01,
where the AA differentiates different parts started on the same day and the 01
indicates the revision. This leaves me 16 characters left for the NAME, to give
me an idea what we're looking at. This means we have unique part numbers that
we plan to list in a database. We sometimes have problems with the NAME field,
when a part changes as it is designed in the way that has been discussed above.



Is the answer to do what is suggested above and use PDM software such as
Intralink or DesignDataManager to store all the extra attributes?

 

[Blaze]

ProE doesn't support points, comas, semicolons and slashes either. Some of them i believe are usefull. And what do you think about it, people?


Maybe i don't catch something. Please, tell me what is PDM software in fact, what principal advantages it gives and what main features has? I mean, how can it help me?


As i can see, keeping the documentation is the best way to order files.

 

[Joe Paul]

Blaze,


The dificulty is renaming the files as we all know. As for the BOM,I use parameters primary_description, material, part_number and some times rev. I may also put the asm_mbr_name parameter for extraction into the BOM. I typically use a seperate Excell BOM with 1 inch tall JPEGS of each part for my clients without ProE. This causes extra tracking and attention on my part but it helps communucation between clients and venders.


PDM is a database management software which will allow rev control and part renaming without having all related files in session. (Among other things). It is a PTC product.

 

[dross]

This is the way I do it currently:


Top assy = 123456-100_blah_blah_assy Dwg = 123456-100


Part of the assy = 123456-01_widget Dwg = 123456-01


The 123456 is a number derived from our Sales Order created when the customer places a P.O. It is a unique number never repeated.

 

[SW]

Part of the assy = 123456-01_widget Dwg = 123456-01

What do you do with parts that you use on different assemblies, such as screws or other fittings?

Sam

 

[dross]

Hardware like that is in a family table, the generic might be named shcs_generic.prt


The instances are then named shcs_10-32x1000, shcs_10-32x750, and so forth, part number whatever works for you.

 

[AHA-D]

Naming the drawing different than the part makes it harder to copy a part while keeping the associated drawing connected.


Alex

 

[AHA-D]

The guy who wrote this only seems to know about Requisitions, Purchase Orders, Invoices etc and jack about part numbering, BOMs, product structure etc so what is the relevance of this arcticle to this thread ??


Don't you guys have to have part numbers assigned ??

The guy deals with product identification and that's something that goes across departments. The key to the discussion is that you should attach intelligence to the system but not to the filename. More intelligence in the filename only means it will sooner be inaccurate, plain wrong or require a lot of inside knowledge.


In a previous life we had product series. This was telling you that a "812"item could work on an "852" product, but you still needed to add some 400-range products because that was the previous version of the 800-series and then when 1200-series came to be you could combine some 800-things to 1200 but not 1200-things to 800. And color code 08 was brown plastic but then came "brown foiled" and brown "spray coating" so you had to know the product to know what kind of process would have produced the "brown".


My present life has products with 8 digits. Ananonymous number can be a 15000- part machine or just a plain washer. There's no way to tell from the number but when you need to know you query the database and it will tell you.


Look at bank accounts. The way the system works over here is that every number has the same structure. You can't tell from the number who's account it is but it all works. Or take the internet. You think you browse to "mcadcentral", but actually you're making a connection to 216.91.137.63. Does it matter to you ? No ! You have a way to connect both to eachother, that's all that matters.

 

[dougr]

My present life has products with 8 digits. Ananonymous number can be a 15000- part machine or just a plain washer. There's no way to tell from the number but when you need to know you query the database and it will tell you.


Look at bank accounts. The way the system works over here is that every number has the same structure. You can't tell from the number who's account it is but it all works. Or take the internet. You think you browse to "mcadcentral", but actually you're making a connection to 216.91.137.63. Does it matter to you ? No ! You have a way to connect both to eachother, that's all that matters.


The analogies with Bank Account numbers and IP addressesare a stretch. I do believe there is "intelligence" applied to both of these. It may not be apparent to Joe Blow but it is to the Professionals





What if youknow the part you need but don't know the number ? If you use an "intelligent" systemhow would yoube able to use the code to figure out if one exists or not.


For instanceI need a 7/16-14 UNCflange head cap screw coated with dry film lube and 1.75" long.How would I use an "intelligent system" to find appropriate part numbers. Your intelligent system now has to become extremely complicated to deal with this kind of inquiry.


more complication=easier to break.


"Intelligent" naming/numbering has been around since dawn immemorial and for very good reason. Check any kind of spec system - Mil/AMS etc


btw Don't forget limitations that Windows puts on filenames:
<A name=windows_fcab_rename_>To change the name of a file or folder</A>

1. 
   <LI>Open My Documents.
   
   
   If the file or folder you want to rename is not located in My Documents or its subfolders, use Search to find it. <NOLOC>To open Search, click Start, and then click Search.</NOLOC>
   <LI>Click the file or folder you want to rename.
   <LI>Under File and Folder Tasks, click Rename this file or Rename this folder.
   <LI>Type the new name, and then press ENTER. </LI>

Notes
<UL>
<LI><NOLOC>To open My Documents, click Start, and then click My Documents.</NOLOC>
<LI>Some programs cannot interpret long file names. The limit for programs that do not support long file names is eight characters. File names cannot contain the following characters:
\ / : * ? " < > |.
<LI>You can also rename a file or folder by right-clicking it and then clicking Rename.
<LI>The names of system folders such as Documents and Settings, <NOLOC>Windows</NOLOC>, or System32 cannot be changed. They are required for <NOLOC>Windows</NOLOC> to run properly. </LI>[/list]
Edited by: dougr

 

[AHA-D]

My only argument (and not only mine) is that long-term, fail-safe codes are dumb, because no one can foresee what the thing it stands for will be in the future.


Opposed to that is that humans don't work that way. Humans work with images, associations, ...


Computers don't care about what you use. To them "flange_150" is as smart/dumb as "123456". They only need a name to be unique, either by itself or by its location.


The combination of humans and machines is a data management system. You ask for items which fit the description "flange", it gives you a list, you pick out the "150 size" and it returns you "123456". Simple as that.


By incorporating human language in the parameters of your "dumb" parts you please both humans and computers. No assembly is ever broken because no one renames part "123456". When you generate the BOM you will be able to read that a "flange 150" has been used.


By the way, long filenames in Windows have a risk in them that a filepath can become too long. We've had issues that Excelfiles (which are named "intelligent")

, couldn't be found by a search in Win2k because they were burried too deep in a multi-level directory, full of long directory names.