I've always been a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, namely his westerns. One in particular was his 1992 film Unforgiven. In this movie I loved the fact that he provided a more realistic perspective of the American old west rather than the romanticized glossy version of most western movies. In the climactic scene you have William Munny (Clint Eastwood) avenging the death of his longtime partner and friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman). Munny understands his shortcomings as an aging outlaw gunfighter chooses a shotgun as his primary weapon to face off with the corrupt town Sheriff. As Munny opens fire on the sheriff and his posse the second shot from the double-barreled shotgun misfired and he had to resort to using his handgun to finish the job. I liked the fact that throughout the movie you got a sense of how not every shot found its mark; guns misfired, and luck had as much to do with the outcome as the participant’s skills. I really found it interesting that Eastwood allowed his character (Munny) to be pragmatic and select the right tool (a shotgun) for conditions he found himself in to enhance his chances at success.

I think this is an important lesson and one I was taught throughout my upbringing and in engineering college. You should approach every problem methodically and be pragmatic in the selection of the tools you choose to resolve the problem. “The right tool for the right job” was something my grandfather used to tell me and I think it applies to the numbering system any company chooses for their product numbering schema.

Of course I have my preferences as to which numbering scheme to choose but the reality is in many cases it is whatever fits the needs of the company is best. If you are a bolt manufacturer, an intelligent numbering scheme may be a suitable numbering system. If I were a consultant to this company I would question the likelihood of future change such as taking on new product lines, expansion of current product lines, acquisition of other businesses or being acquired. These all play a role in the determination but if the customer makes the case for an intelligent numbering system and it seems to be the best option for them based on the merits then I wouldn't fight the decision.

However, in my opinion a random part numbering system provides the most robust option regardless of these future events. With most PLM system you have the opportunity to define a taxonomy that captures the critical aspects of a product/component enabling classification, identification, and exacting searches. The ability to subclass and define critical attribution for products and components allows the abstraction of prior needed intelligence in the part number for the product or component. The only potential downside of random numbering is if the description of the object is a free form field. This introduces potential for user error in defining the syntax of the description making searching more difficult. Zero Wait-State identified the need to eliminate the potential for error and developed the DescriptionState to overcome this limitation. DescriptionState operates on the attribute values of the object to derive the description. This ensures a consistent and searchable description eliminating human error. Couple a tool like DescriptionState with a well-organized and implemented system utilizing non-intelligent (random) part number generator and the part number becomes irrelevant.

Fun fact about Unforgiven, Richard Harris, Gene Hackman, and Clint Eastwood were all born in 1930. These types of coincidences illustrate that you can only have so much variation in a restricted or intelligent part numbering schema before you run into the need for repetition. OK, the reference is a bit of a stretch but implementing any level of intelligence in a part-numbering scheme will eventually hit some type of limitation. If you project your organization out into the future and choose the evaluation process I have outlined here in most cases you will conclude random part number generation with structured descriptions is the right tool for the job and hope there are no misfires.

[Edit: repost from 2015]