In our Windchill system we have got many object attributes which are backed up by a catalogue, e.g.
* naming (with several translations)
* material (standard, reach conformance)
* coating
These attributes are used in parts, documents and cad documents. The catalogue entries are managed by business. Entries are added, modified, released, made obsolete. For naming also we have a request workflow.
Technically we decided to use a soft type of WTPart for these catalogue objects, as this gives us plenty of options. OOTB alternatives "Type and Attribute Management" or "Preferences" don't apply since they need administrative rights (which we in IT cannot give to business users).
The drawback however is that over the time we introduced plenty of customizations for it, e.g. data utilities and pickers, search, listeners, maintenance tools. Also, WTPart is a very different thing from conceptual point of view.
Given that, also having in mind the Windchill concept of context managers to perform administrative tasks on their own (rather than asking IT for administration), I suggest to introduce business managed catalogues. These should be lifecycle managed, access controlled, iterated, maybe even revision controlled. They should be mappable to business attributes in the type and attribute manager. Search capabilities and reporting is also needed.
