Two weeks ago, this post from Ilan Madjar drew my attention. He pointed to a demo movie, explaining how to support Smart Part Numbering on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. You can watch the recording here.

I was surprised that Smart Part Numbering is still used, and if you read through the comments on the post, you see the various arguments that exist.

  • “Many mid-market customers are still using it”
    me: I think it is not only the mid-market – however, the argument is no reason to keep it alive.
  • “The problem remains in the customer’s desire (or need or capability) for change.”
    me: This is part of the lowest resistance.
  • “User resistance to change. Training and management sponsorship has proven to be not enough.”
    me: probably because discussions are feature-oriented, not starting from the business benefits.
  • “Cost and effort- rolling this change through downstream systems. The cost and effort of changing PN in PLM,ERP,MES, etc., are high. Trying to phase it out across systems is a recipe for a disaster.”
    me: The hidden costs of maintaining Smart Numbers inside an organization are high and invisible, reducing the company’s competitiveness.
  • “Existing users often complain that it takes seconds to minutes more for unintelligent PN vs. using intelligent PN.”
    me: If we talk about a disconnected user without access to information, it could be true if the number of Smart Numbers to comprehend is low.

There were many other arguments for why you should not change. It reminded me of the image below:

Smart Numbers related to the Coordinated approach

Smart Part Numbers are a characteristic of best practices from the past. Where people were working in different systems, the information moving from one system to another was done manually.

For example, it is re-entering the Bill of Materials from the PDM system into the ERP system or attaching drawings to materials/parts in the ERP system. The filename often reflects the material or part number in the latter case.

The problems with the coordinated, smart numbering approach are:

  • New people in the organization need to learn the meaning of the numbering scheme. This learning process reduces the flexibility of an organization and increases the risk of making errors.
  • Typos go unnoticed when transferring numbers from one system to another and only get noticed late when the cost of fixing the error might be 10 -100 fold.
  • The argument that people will understand the meaning of a part is partly valid. A person can have a good guess of the part based on the smart part number; however, the details can be different unless you work every day with the same and small range of parts.
  • Smart Numbers created a legacy. After Mergers and Acquisitions, there will be multiple part number schemes. Do you want to renumber old parts, meaning non-value-added, risky activities? Do you want to continue with various numbering schemes, meaning people need to learn more than one numbering schema – a higher entry barrier and risk of errors?

There were and still are many advanced smart numbering systems.

In one of my first PDM implementations in the Netherlands, I learned about the 12NC code system from Philips – introduced at Philips in 1963 and used to identify complete products, documentation, and bare components, up to the finest detail. At this moment, many companies in the Philips family (suppliers or offspring) still use this numbering system, illustrating that it is not only the small & medium enterprises that are reluctant to change their numbering system.

The costs of working with Smart Part Numbers are often unnoticed as they are considered a given.

 

From Coordinated to Connected

Digital transformation in the PLM domain means moving from coordinated practices toward practices that benefit from connected technology. In many of my blog posts, you can read why organizations need to learn to work in a connected manner. It is both for their business sustainability and also for being able to deal with regulations related to sustainability in the short term.

GHG reporting, ESG reporting, material compliance, and the DPP are all examples of the outside world pushing companies to work connected. Besides the regulations, if you are in a competitive business, you must be more efficient, innovative and faster than your competitors.

In a connected environment, relations between artifacts (datasets) are maintained in an IT infrastructure without requiring manual data transformations and people to process the data. In a connected enterprise, this non-value-added work will be reduced.

How to move away from Smart Numbering systems?

Several comments related to the Smart Numbering discussion mentioned that changing the numbering system is too costly and risky to implement and that no business case exists to support it. This statement only makes sense if you want your business to become obsolete slowly. Modern best practices based on digitization should be introduced as fast as possible, allowing companies to learn and adapt. There is no need for a big bang.

  • Start with mapping, prioritizing, and mapping value streams in your company. Where do we see the most significant business benefits related to cost of handling, speed, and quality?

Note: It is not necessary to start with engineering as they might be creators of data – start, for example, with the xBOM flow, where the xBOM can be a concept BOM, the engineering BOM, the Manufacturing BOM, and more. Building this connected data flow is an investment for every department; do not start from the systems.

  • Next point: Do not rename or rework legacy data. These activities do not add value; they can only create problems. Instead, build new process definitions that do not depend on the smartness of the number.

Make sure these objects have, besides the part number, the right properties, the right status, and the right connections. In other words, create a connected digital thread – first internally in your company and next with your ecosystem (OEMs, suppliers, vendors)

  • Next point: Give newly created artifacts a guaranteed unique ID independent of others. Each artifact has its status, properties and context. In this step, it is time to break any 1 : 1 relation between a physical part and a CAD-part or drawing. If a document gets revised, it gets a new version, but the version change should not always lead to a part number change. You can find many discussions on why to decouple parts and documents and the flexibility it provides.
  • Next point: New generated IDs are not necessarily generated in a single system. The idea of a single source of truth is outdated. Build your infrastructure upon existing standards if possible. For example, the UID of the Digital Product Passport will be based on the ISO/IEC 15459 standard, similar to the UID for retail products managed by the GS1 standard. Or, probably closer to home, look into your computer’s registry, and you will discover a lot of software components with a unique ID that specific programs or applications can use in a shared manner.

When will it happen?

In January 2016, I wrote about “the impact of non-intelligent part numbers” and surprisingly almost 8 years later and we are still in the same situation.

I just read Oleg Shilovitsky’s post The Data Dilemma: Why Engineers and Manufacturing Companies Struggle to Find Time for Data Management where he mentions Legacy Systems and Processes, Overwhelming Workloads, Lack of (Data) Expertise, Short-Term Focus and Resource Constraints as inhibitors.

You probably all know the above cartoon. How can companies get out of this armor or habits? Will they be forced by the competition or by regulations. What do you think ?

 

Conclusion

Despite proven business benefits and insights, it remains challenging for companies to move toward modern, data-driven practices where Smart Number generators are no longer needed. When talking one-on-one to individuals, they are convinced a change is necessary, and they are pointing to the “others”.

I wish you all a prosperous 2024 and the power to involve the “others”.

@38 minute: you need to be able to unlearn