【转帖】drawing numbers and part numbers

yang686526

drawing numbers and part numbers
i hope i've submitted this in the right place - seems the most relevant...
i have a simple sounding question - is there a preferred system for numbering drawings and/or parts?
i have in the past used a system where the part number gave information about what the part itself was, another system where the part number gave information about which product it was used on, and another system that gave no information whatsoever and was just a sequential numbering system.
i work for a company that is fairly new, and trying to come up a consistent system that is, if possible, approved or recommended by iso or other bodies.
any comments would be welcome!
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i'm sure that you will get good suggestions here, but this might be a more suitable forum in which to ask:  
see:
this has come up several times both in this forum, as mm linked and also in the forum ewh gives.
in summary, current thinking seems to be that dumb numbering is best.  other information like used on etc. can generally be contained in their own fields as meta data in cad files, erp systems etc.
kenat,
may be this will help:
there's a white paper that studied the use of sequential (dumb) numbers versus smart numbers. i think it is actually linked in one of the threads here on eng-tip.  anyway, yeah, dumb numbers are smart, and smart numbers are dumb.   
matt lorono
cad engineer/ecn analyst
silicon valley, ca