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Equipment / Asset Numbering

Equipment / Asset Numbering

Equipment / Asset Numbering

(OP)
Our maintenance is currently location-based, so equipment which can be swapped with a spare (such as a motor or pump) does not have its own identity (or history).  Also, the spare's location in storage cannot be tracked.

Preparing to add equipment identification, I wonder if there are standard numbering schemes.

My previous employer had standards, such as
08xxxx for Air Compressors, where xxxx is the unique number for each piece of equipment,
11xxxx for Fans or Blowers,
20xxxx for Gearboxes,
42xxxx for Conveyors, etc.

Does anyone recognize these as being from some standard such as ISO?  If so, whose?

Does anyone use prefixes or suffixes to indicate ownership or geography?  My previous employer had to add a two-character location prefix to those numbers when company-wide software was implemented, making other sites' equipment visible.

Thanks!
Don

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

Hi DonHall,

I have set up many cmms systems for many companies, even those that were undergoing iso 14001 certification. We did not use the numbering scheme that you described.  I don't believe this to be any sort of standard.In my experience you might as well get some asset tags with numbers 01001 - 05001 (for 5,000 pieces of equipment). Then if you need to run a report on supply fans sort by catagory supply fan. You also might try having the engineers or yourself (whoever is going to place the asset tag on the equipment itself) go in order by catagory so that when running reports numbers are mainly sequential.

I have in previous experiences set up systems that use letter/number combonations like:
fan0001 (fan)
she0001 (sheave)
blt0001 (belt)

This seemed to work great in applications where engineers needed to "check out parts" to a work order or assets or both depending on how your system is run.
The only setback I see to this is you might have to pay extra when having your asset tags made up as most all numbering schemes are usualy pre-made not custom.

The last place that I was at used the field warehouse to differentiate between different sites.  I am not hooked up to any other sites currently so I can no longer elaborate or double-check anything for you on this but I used to just sort out by warehouse when I did not want to view others equipment.
(sjc) was my warehouse's name and there were a ton of others on there. (even though they never seemed to have a proper set up. Is it just me or does no one seem to set these up right anymore). As far as I'm concerned other sites on you system are going to mess you up. They won't put the suffix in right or something. Save yourself some time talk to the program managers personaly or you will pay for it in the end. (80+ hours of data entry to fix north carolina's problem) anyway just watch out that they are not creating more work for you.

Let me throw one at you.
have you had any experience going paperless. I am halfway paperless in my work order module right now and have a few issues. Multiple pocket pc accounts in microsoft outlook I can set up email on mine but the other 4 accounts won't sync up email. activesync still syncs but does not sync email for any users. is there one field I didnt check under settings?? if your not paperless yet nevermind I just thought I would throw that out there as that is what I am scratching my head about now.

cmms_axim

any further questions email me @ phillip.whipple@hcahealthcare.com

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

Hi Don -I see this thread is old now but I am planning similar work at a small pharmacuetical plant.

Most of our plant is numbered but no thought had been given to whether the numbers are location or equipment numbers - and as you pointed out you need both.

Location numbers - to appear on drawings and operation procedures so that when identical equipment are swapped in and out of duty there is no need to update drawings and procedures

Equipment Numbers - to track the items maintenance,use history

and preferably only the equipment number affixed to the item with the location number hanging above or clipped to an adjacen pipe. That way the equipment can keep its unique equipment number and there is no need to swap over location tags when moving equipment around because the location tag stays at 'the location'.

For large plant items that are permanent fixtures both numbers can be tagged to the equipment as the plant itself is likely to outlast your tagging system - and removing a location tag will be a minor part of a job compared to shifting a 3000 litre vessel.  

As far as standard codes go I was not able to locate anything for equipment such as pumps, valves, heat exchangers but did come across a useful British standard for instruments which used two letter codes.
eg TI - Temperature Indicator, FT flow transmitter, PC Pressure controller. Generally, the advice I got was that every site makes up their own codes.

We plan to use two letters followed by 4 digits for all our equipment and simply invent codes for equipment that are not instruments. Be sure to have at least one more digit than you need now in your codes.

eg PP0001  pump,  HX0001 heat exchanger.

We see no need to add location details to the equipment number as location details are included in the location number.

I'd be interested to hear if over the last few months you have reached any conclusions on your plant - especially if they conflict with my plans.

Ben.

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

If you have a plant that has a type of flow or is build up from units (like a refinery) you could make a combination of Unit number and equipment prefix:
examples  P-104 (pump)  TI-1256 (Temp indicator) HX-151  these would belong to the 100 Unit or area
 
V-201 (vessel), P-201 etc..

Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

Hi Don,

Sounds very interesting, sure all systems will work.  I like the alpha numeric combinations.  In the past I worked on similar product coding and registration systems.  Problem was, one product or item often had 3 or more different numbers, for various purposes and reasons…(Catalog Number, Older Legacy System, New Sequential Number...)  I recently spoke to another consultant, they use SAP and recommended that one should let the SYSTEM generate the numbers automatically.  Yes, then I agree, one should then be in a position to trace the part by category, location, parent/child or any other meaningful relationship.  Must use tag and or barcode and or RFID, to ID the item.

Regards
Rudi

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

I don't think there is a need for asset numbering standard, you are free to find the most approprite soltuion for yourself.

I was trying several solutions, having some kind of problem with any of them, consultaing a lot of literature, and at this moment the following scheme seems the best for me:

NNNN-LLL-NNN   (N-number, L-letter)

First part is numeric code of your kind of equipment grouping. It can be physical location, production line or infrastructure system.

Some plants/companies have need to use two simoultaneous gruping system, for instance physical location and production line gruping. In that case I think you need to choose one of them to include in code and the other should be set in equpment modul as additional info. That is only pratical solution.

Second part of code is consisting of three letters, that is code for equipment type. It should be partially descriptive i.e. PUM for pumps, COM for compressors, but you shouldn't spend to much time to find really descriptive code for every type. The idea is to simply avoid frustrative row of numbers.

Third part is unique identifier for any pice of equipment. In my most recent setup we decided to group by physical location. So for one meat cutter code was for instance:
2305-CUT-004. I had to take care that any new cutter will receive subsequent identification number, regardless of location.

Say I had to move cutter from location 2305 to location 4505. If there is a cutter on location 4505 that also has 004 in identifier, I will have to completele reset moving cutter. If I took care to do subsequent numbering, than there is only one cutter with 004 in identifier, so i will change the code for moving cutter from 2305-CUT-004 to 4505-CUT-004 and the whole activity is not so tedios.

As equipment modules normally don't allow you to change code for equipment thst is already set, you will need to establish cross-link among new and old code, to have all work history recaped, but having budget separated (every location is chaarged for the time equipment spent on that location). This is the most complex situation that can occur in practice, but when you know that your CUT-004 is allways CUT-4, no matter how many locations it changes - life is much easier for analysis!

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

we use a numbering system based off mcc and accounting code.

site-equipment-accounting code-mcc or breaker number
0325-mtr-7845-062315
0325-hyd-4568-201231

first one is site ohio,motor,dryers,primary set of mcc
second one is site ohio-hydraulic,mixers, secondary set of mcc

this has worked out wonderful for us.

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

Don,

The only standard I have knowledge of is the DB normalization rules set out by Microsoft.   Normalization is the process of structuring relational database schema such that most ambiguity is removed from the underlying table structure. There are typically 5 normal form levels but I have read text with more.
First normal Form
Each column must contain only a single value and each row must contain the same columns.
As an example The Address 1313 Mockingbird Lane, Munsterville Ohio 66666. This could be put in a field called Address, but the proper format is to place the Address in one field, the City in a second field, the state in a third, and the zip code in a fourth.
This is set up with one intention in mind, which would be the ultimate retrieval of data in the form of reports. In the top posting it was suggested to use an alphanumeric code describing multiple characteristics of the equipment. The main problems I have experienced with this format is that there is the need of some code book to decipher what these sequences mean and it encourages subsequent users of your DB to improvise with codes of their own in an effort to improve the system. This quickly snowballs with subsequent administrators of the system. If you look into any decent CMMS you will find that various fields exist for this more specific detail regarding equipment type, group, etc.
The scariest statement I have heard is the "What works best for you" philosophy. I t pays off greatly in the long run to plan out the structure of your DB tables. The above philosophy is the equivalent of your local home builder showing up to start building you new house and saying “I build by what works best for me and I prefer to figure it out as I go along”
 The straight sequencial numbering sequence has numerous benefits the best of whic is the location of equipment. In a large facility if I am looking for Equipment ID 1208010 and I find 1208008 I can be pretty confident that I am in close proximity to my target equipment. Hint: Leave gaps in your numbering sequence to allow for new and missed equipment.

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

KISS keep it simple (NOT Stupid)

The nowadays CMMS is light years away from the "home made" systems

1) Don't try to put intelligence in your ID code
   the CMMS has the option to build structure in your equipment lists through categories and classes.
 I have seen codes about 10 digits long just because the designer took the VIN (vehicle identification number) of Ford motors, as an example. As long you have only Ford vehicles in your CMMS, there is nothing wrong, but if you want to put an electric pump in the system and "upgrade" the ID to match your standard of 10 digits, where every number has a meaning, you will create nonsense.

Keep in mind that some poor fellow has to feed the monster (CMMS) with data. If on the input the maintenance guy has to remember a lot of math to call the workorder for processing, imagine Operational people, they will have always an excuse for not entering a workorder request.

2) Know the name the equipment is referred to by both maintenance and operations. If they call it Tractor 6 it doesn't make sence to call it 1276-BXY-8903.

If the owner want to know the history of his tractor and has rights to the system, he just will run a query on category tractor and %6% in the description. I think the easiest ID would be TRAC-06

Steven van Els
SAvanEls@cq-link.sr

RE: Equipment / Asset Numbering

Some excellent suggestions here. I'll now make a few notes of my own... even though this thread is ancient.

It really depends on what your orginizational needs are when it comes to your naming convention. In a recent case where I was the sys admin for a system with over 500 assets over 5hp we used the following nuemonic structure:


For static Equipment:
breakdown: Building-EquipType-Unit-Floor
ie. "BO-AHU-01-02"

= "BuildingCode-AirHandlingUnit-Unit1-2ndfloor"

an example of one of it's associated 6 month tasks would be:

"BO-AHU-02-6M-POELEC"

= "BuildingCode-AirHandlingUnit-Unit1-Frequency-ResponsibleShop"

Other equipement subject to relcation might have had this naming convention:

BO-INC-79622085

= "BuildingCode-EquipType-First8ofSerialNumber"


We found, unlike others, that a desciptive name was helpful.

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