After careful evaluation, NE Company discovered they could easily separate their components into three groups: unique, common and inexpensive, and common and expensive. This enabled them to establish a strategy appropriate to each group and get the maximum benefit out of the system.

 

For components unique to the customer (such as circuit boards and custom fabs and ICs) they created one internal part number for each customer part number and used the customer part number as the internal part number.  This made it easy to identify unique parts and handle them accordingly.

 

For components that were common and inexpensive, they created an internal part number for each customer part number but used an internal part number instead of the customer's part number for tracking.  This provides flexibility to place the component in the next group should the need arise in the future.  (This group also included low volume parts that were very unlikely to reach purchase minimums needed for a price break).

 

For components that were common and expensive, they created one internal part number for multiple manufacturer and customer part numbers.  This way they increased the likelihood of reaching the next price break, reduced excess inventory, increased visibility of available inventory across multiple jobs, and allowed MRP to more fully manage those parts thereby reducing the negative impact on cash flow.