General > General Technical Chat
Why do companies create their own part numbers for electronic components?
LabSpokane:
Another aspect of creation of an internal part numbering system is the computer system (MRP/ERP, BOM control, etc.) that is needed to manage 1000's of parts, not just electronic, from manufacturers with totally in-congruent part numbering systems. Even if every component one used was single source, it would be very difficult to use each manufacturer's native part number and have a BOM be comprehensible. It also made doing reporting easy because it's simple to do a report on a particular type of inventory, work in progress, or finished product (see the coding system below).
A lot of this was driven by the needs of the computer systems in use during the 1960's - 90's, where the rule was mainframes running custom software written in COBOL with fixed field databases and reports generated on continuous, pinfeed printouts. On a product with 100's of components, a uniform part numbering system made reading reports and indented bills of materials *infinitely* easier by humans, because everything fell into neat columns - something that would be impossible using a mismash of vendor part numbers.
Where I'm at, a lot of the part numbering systems used locally actually originated with General Instrument, so the part numbering schemes look like:
XXX-YYYY-ZZ
XXX: Category of component (i.e. IC, PCB, mechanical, plastics, sub-assembly, etc.)
YYYY: Specific part in category
ZZ: Variations of that part (color, length, or similar characteristics)
A company-specific part numbering system really is worth the effort, because a well-implemented one also makes life easy for the humans that have work with it. A system like the one above is a lot like giving each part its own telephone number, and humans are surprisingly adept at remembering and collating many hundreds of parts in such a system. I am constantly amazed by the ability of stockroom and production workers to remember components based on such a part numbering system.
vk6zgo:
Automotive parts were organised in a similar manner for many years before it started to be used in Electronics,so that GM may have used,say, 740-145-098 for a part,whereas BMC would have used another series of numbers for the identical part,Lucas may have called it something else again.
The car trade never had the saturation of standard part numbers from manufacturers that happens in Electronics.
On the Electronics maintenance side,Techs & EEs all use the standard part numbers.
If I'm fixing something which uses,say a LM380,I don't give a rodent's exhaust port what the equipment manufacturer calls it,I'll grab an LM380 & get the thing working!
Tinkerer:
My company does it because its easier to specify approved parts under one number that are essentially identical but otherwise made by different manufacturers. If you take the manufacturers number you end up with 10 different versions of a 100ohm resistor without any reason to.
free_electron:
--- Quote from: German_EE on June 10, 2015, 08:56:44 pm ---HP were terrible for this. That blown IC in your expensive piece of equipment could be an ASIC or a quad NAND but all you see is the HP part number on the top so they are the only source of spares. Bad news if support for your equipment ended ten years ago.
--- End quote ---
Nonsense. Hp had the decency of publishing the cross reference list. You can trace every hp number.
MOSIUR540:
By making the unique part number, is it possible to reduce the counterfeit IC?
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