How do you handle Windchill Parts for industry specs with no unique part numbers

[slapha]

A poll (also seeing if anyone has any unique ideas)

For industry specification items that have no unique part numbers (such as materials) which may call out multiple variants/sizes/formulas. What do your Windchill parts look like to make them unique?

• Call out industry spec and identify the variant separately (note, comment, etc)
• Call out industry spec and variations as Number
• Company unique part number
• Company Specification to assign part numbers to the variations
• Company Identity Cross-reference/equivalent drawing/document
• Vendor specific part number
• ...?

We've had some internal debates and I thought it would be interesting to poll the Windchill community as I've seen it done many different ways at different companies. I've seen it common with materials which can be bought in various sizes/shapes/amounts, but even some items such as piping fittings could have a specification that doesn't call out a specific part number identifier. Connecting to an ERP system or using Windchill MPMLink can add some limitations.

[avillanueva]

Are you specifically looking at raw materials? I know Windchill was looking to add this as a feature, discussed at last conference. If we specify that a part is made from a certain material, we often do not create a WTPart for that material. Its just called out as a note since there are infinite ways to call for a material and what stock to make it from (round, bar, plate, etc). This is where things get fuzzy. If you are running high volume production, it may make sense to get precise on your BOM so in ERP, you can do planning. Important thing is whatever way you go, that your PLM and ERP match. For example, if something is make from a linear raw material, like length of bar stock, that you specify it as inch or some length unit. This is where you can get UOM confusion since that raw stock might be sold in unique length units (which could be see as each) but can be cut to any various length. Get a handle on that or it will get out of control quickly.  So many ways to tackle this but I doubt you will find one way that works for all.

[slapha]

Yes and no, while some is raw material, I’ve seen similar cases for solder which you could say is a material, and pipe fitting which would be parts. Again, not so much looking for a solution as there are many, just seeing what the community is doing. 

[BenLoosli]

Many options to an open ended question.

Material is assigned to the part itself through material files. I could have the same bolt design, but 3 or 4 different variants (part numbers) based on the bolt material. I am a fan of family tables for COTS hardware items so copying one table to another for a material change is easy. We had over 12K parts in family tables and things like nuts and bolts, we had different family tables for each material. Also color coded the material so the designed could see if they used a stainless steel nut with a steel bolt very quickly. We used a company specific range of numbers for all family tables but included a cross reference as a parameter to either McMaster-Carr or Fastenal if they needed further clarification on the properties.

For pipe fittings, UniStrut fittings, etc. we would use the vendor part number with a 3-character vendor name mnemonic. These parts were usually required to be purchased from that vendor and this made it easy to identify them. If a part could be from any vendor, we also had a range of part numbers used for generic COTS items that were not easily put into a family table.