----- Original Message ----- From: "Luther, Ron" <> To: <>; <thelist at lists.evolt.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 4:34 PM Subject: RE: [thelist] SKU Numbers? Steve Clason noted: >>In my experience it's best not to put too much intelligence into >>numbering things. Just give them a number and let the inventory control >>system figure everything out. Inserting 'intelligence' into part numbering _was_ considered a good idea a long time ago. Today, however, I believe it is considered bad practice and should be avoided. I believe current 'best practice' is to keep a separate part master table. That table, (or tables) can contain parameter fields for all of the values and 'intelligence' you want to associate with a given sku. huh? Aren't you two contradicting yourself? Isn't designing the master table what the original post was about? Aren't the best SKU's the ones that describe the product within the numbers themselves? Some samples where the SKU is tied to what the actual product is, you may want to consider belonging to the first link, where definitely the number/string is "intelligent": http://www.uc-council.org/ http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wc56help/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.commerce.user.doc/tasks/tpngen1s.htm http://www.efulfillmentservice.com/ http://www.advanceware.net/module_products_apparel.asp hth! cheers, Mark