Thursday 20 March 2014

Establishing a Standard Naming Convention for Materials Data

Defining a standard naming convention is one of the most important tasks in any data cleansing project. The naming convention acts as the foundation upon which all existing and future materials data will be built, ensuring consistency and accuracy throughout the item master. During the initial planning stages of a data cleansing project, it is critical that you and/or your service provider develop a standard operating procedure for naming convention and abbreviations. The standard naming convention will consist of the following components:

Noun: A member of a class of words that is combined with modifiers to serve as the subject of a verb. With regards to materials data, the Noun is the primary identifier, which specifies a type of part.

Modifier: A word or phrase that makes specific the meaning of the Noun. With regards to materials data, the Modifier is the secondary identifier, which specifies the meaning of the Noun.

Attributes: The physical and performance characteristics of an item, including type, size, material, application, etc.

IMA utilizes an internally developed Noun-Modifier Dictionary to identify and classify MRO items. The Noun-Modifier Dictionary currently houses over 2,000 Noun-Modifier pairs, each with 5-7 corresponding attributes. Unlike many competing software and service providers, the IMA Noun-Modifier Dictionary is flexible to accommodate client customization. IMA will provide the client with a copy of the standard Noun-Modifier Dictionary as an industry best practice guideline. Depending on client preference, Noun-Modifier pairs and attributes may be added, removed, or rearranged within the dictionary as needed. In many cases, maintenance personnel may have a difference preference regarding the order of which attributes are arranged in the description. In other cases, field types and character limitations require data to be arranged in a specific order so as to clearly identify the item using minimal characters. In any case, it is important to keep in mind that too many or too few naming options can significantly hinder data cleansing effectiveness. It is important that members from each department of your organization have input on the final dictionary to ensure all business requirements have been met.

“Data that exceeds the data requirement is not better data; it is just more expensive data.”
- Peter R. Benson

Let’s take a look at a couple real-life Noun-Modifier examples:

Example 1)        MANUFACTURER: BALDOR
PART NUMBER: VM3558T

NOUN: MOTOR
MODIFIER: ELECTRIC

ATTRIBUTES:
HORSEPOWER: 2HP
SPEED: 1725 RPM
ELECTRICAL RATING: 208-230/460V 3PH 60HZ
FRAME: 145TC
ENCLOSURE: TEFC

Example 2)        MANUFACTURER: GOODYEAR     
PART NUMBER: 5VX800

NOUN: BELT
MODIFIER: V

ATTRIBUTES:
INDUSTRY STANDARD: 5VX800
OUTSIDE CIRCUMFERENCE: 80IN OC
TOP WIDTH: 0.625IN WD                                 
THICKNESS: 0.531IN THK
TYPE: COGGED

For more information on IMA Ltd. and the services offered, please visit www.imaltd.com or contact info@imaltd.com. Be sure to take advantage of our no cost, no obligation MRO Data Evaluation, which will identify the current condition of your data, while providing impactful before and after cleansing samples. In addition, IMA will complete a detailed ROI calculation to reveal the potential cost savings associated with data cleansing.

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