Hi Everyone,
I'm a bit new here so .... hi!

I work in the quality assurance dept for a company that manufactures optical components for the telecommunications industry (ISO9001:200). Our customers pop our devices under the sea in their big submarine telecomunications systems so product reliability is quite important to us (think "like medical implants but no one will die if we get it wrong, it will just cost lots of money!"). So basically, our customers demand full traceability.

Previous manufacturing companies I've worked for had a "Part Number" which was a code that designated the type of device it was, and a "serial number" which was a code that designated the individual device - so that you could look at records to find out the components used to make the device plus it's manufacturing history. So to me, a product isn't "identified and traceable" unless it is marked with the part number AND the serial number at all times.

Questions:

1. What arguement can I use to convince people here that you need both the part number and the serial number on a device? Currently I'm saying "because you just have to, thats why!" which isn't that convincing!!

2. Am I wrong? If the serial number is unique across time and across products then is it enough on it's own?

Look forward to your opinions. :)

Milky White

Hi Milky and welcome to the Cove :bigwave:

Perhaps you could create a scenario - suggest that a particular customer has come back to you with a product failure. Try tracing back to identify it. If you can, perhaps the existing system is satisfactory, if not then a more robust approach may be required. At least that way you are dealing with facts rather than opinion.

Better yet, imagine that same customer coming back to you (select a number that falls at the end of the range of life for your product, we say 20 or 30) years and complaining that something happened.

Obviously it is for traceability ! Perhaps to confuse the consumers too!

Questions:

1. What arguement can I use to convince people here that you need both the part number and the serial number on a device? Currently I'm saying "because you just have to, thats why!" which isn't that convincing!!

2. Am I wrong? If the serial number is unique across time and across products then is it enough on it's own?


If you have a serial number, and the serial number is linked to the relevant documents and information, why would you need anything more? I can see where having a part or model number on the device might be helpful in customer service situations, but I'm not sure how it would contribute to traceability if the serial number provides it.

If you have a serial number, and the serial number is linked to the relevant documents and information, why would you need anything more? I can see where having a part or model number on the device might be helpful in customer service situations, but I'm not sure how it would contribute to traceability if the serial number provides it.

Just what Jim said!
Also, if not a serial #, maybe use the manufacturing #, lot number, or any identified that is unique to that part would be appropiate without inventing another #.

Phil

Just what Jim said!
Also, if not a serial #, maybe use the manufacturing #, lot number, or any identified that is unique to that part would be appropiate without inventing another #.

PhilWhy not model the serial number after VIN (vehicle identification numbers?)
(http://www.vehicleidentificationnumber.com/vehicle_identification_numbers_vin_overview.html)
OVERVIEW OF THE VEHICLE IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS
The Vehicle Identification Number was originally described in ISO Standard 3779 in February 1977 and last revised in 1983. The ISO-VIN was designed to identify motor vehicles, trailers, motorcycles and mopeds and consists of three sections:

WMI - World Manufacturer Identifier, which uniquely identifies the maker of the vehicle. It occupies the first three positions of the VIN, except when a manufacturer builds less than 500 vehicles per year, in which case the third digit is always a 9 and the 12th, 13th and 14th position of the VIN are used for the second part of the WMI. The WMI is described in ISO 3780.
VDS - Vehicle Descriptor Section. These 6 characters occupy positions 4 through 9 of the VIN and may be used by the manufacturer to identify attributes of the vehicle.

VIS - Vehicle Identifier Section. The last 8 characters of the VIN are used for the identification a of specific vehicle. The last four characters shall always be numeric.

ISO 3779 makes a provision for a code for the year in which a vehicle is built. When a manufacturer uses a year code, ISO recommends that the 10th position of the VIN is used.

The same applies to the use of a factory code. When a manufacturer uses a factory or plant code, ISO recommends that the 11th position of the VIN is used. In the VIN-code, capital letters A through Z and numbers 1 through 0 may be used, except the letters I, O and Q for obvious reasons. No signs or spaces are allowed in the VIN.

Vehicle Identification Number - VIN Numbers
Copyright © 1999-2008

Why not model the serial number after VIN (vehicle identification numbers?)

At one time the materials people referred to this sort of thing as "smart" part numbers. In actual use, there often isn't much smartness, and the result is part numbers that are too long and that cause mistakes.

What a clever bunch you are!!

You have got me thinking a little differently, because you are ALL correct in my opinion.

You don't need the part number to be labelled on the product necessarily as you can trace back to the manufacturing data via the serial number to find out what it is. BUT if you have a situation where you might have lots of different types of products in manufacturing AND they all look alike, you might inadvertantly process a device wrongly because you weren't sure what it was. You'd find out before you shipped it, but it would cause confusion and delay. In a manufacturing environment like that the part number would be a requirement on the product. But if you only make one product, and you finish making them before you make the next product, or they all look totally different from each other, then the risk of confusion is greatly reduced.

Or, you could have a serial number that has information encoded in it that tells you what the product is (like a VIN on a car). The one possible problem with that is that as things change in the future, and new products come along you might not have invented a flexible enough set of "rules" for your numbering scheme. Then you need exceptions to the rules to cover one particular product that doesn't fit into the scheme and then blah, blah, blah, you end up with a really complex numbering seqence. And the more complicated the rules are the greater the chance that you will end up with something that isn't unique. But again, if you know what products are to come the risk of this is smaller so this sort of thing could work fine.

So what I will do is come up with a few ways we could do it, make the pros and cons and risks associated with each clear and let THEM decide on the way that best suits us.

Thanks people!

Milky White

Hello White,

Interesting subject. Currently all kinds of people are discussing wether we need separate serial# and product# or stick with our current numbering.
Sadly the discussion started just because our new SAP system can handle so much more numbers...
Anyway, currently we have serials like this: "ddddd-ppppp-sss"
where ddddd = some mixedup date number (you can use yyymm or yyddd or yywwd...)
ppppp = an internal product(type/group) ID
and sss = a sequential number wich makes every unit unique

We can do it like this as we don't produce thousends a year.

Hope it help,
Jerome