[TR] [6pack] FW: What are these parts? The answer?

[John Macartney]

Michael Porter wrote: This is a real problem with sequentially generated part numbers. There's no real way to double-check results with the item, and if a single digit is off, or transposed, chaos results. 

Amen to that😊 Long, long ago, a colleague and I were in Zambia (Africa) undertaking a massive re-habilitation programme for several hundred European built I.H. tractors. The vast majority were unusable due to user abuse and neglect and every engine need a rebuild. It was extremely hot, flies everywhere and time was against us and one of the things we needed were 700 off 539128R91 engine water pumps. With one of us reading the parts book and yours truly doing the writing, 539128R91 got recorded as 539182R91. The order was telexed to Heidelberg in Germany for immediate shipment with a massive raft of other stuff and arrived in Zambia  a month later. That same day, I received a phone call from a very irate Workshop Director because as a result of my transcription error, 700 engine water pump assemblies had morphed into 700 tractor driving wheel centre weights at 150kgs (330lbs approx) each weight - and to compound the problem, the whole lot was sent airfreight!!!!!
As a Partsman at heart, I agree entirely with Michael. There's probably no ideal numbering system and those used by BMW and Daimler Benz are lengthy in the extreme. But spare a thought for the Japanese motorcycle fraternity - Kawasaki, Yamaha and all the rest are releasing new machines for endless world markets probably as frequently as the Chinese are cranking out laptops for all the big brand names. Their part i/d systems were/are (?) a nightmare.

Jonmac


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