Implementation of a Knowledge-Based System for Automatic Part Numbering in a Logistics Information System

In order to perform a "lean and agile" manufacturing plant, functions of a logistics system must be advanced to rapidly respond to the marketing requirements. Based on this viewpoint, this paper presents an intelligent automatic part number generation system developed on a client-server information structure. Up to now, almost all of the commercialized parts numbering systems still need first to manually identify a part number, and then to type the number into a computer; moreover, they are not built with a modern electronic commerce (EC) design tools, e.g., ASP.NET. This manual work may cause a serious problem of the inaccurate data processing. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes an experimental intelligent part numbering system in the form of a knowledge-based structure. The structure was constructed with an object-oriented BOM (bill of materials) database in which the features of components (parts) can be visually judged and automatically numbered by a set of part number production rules stored in the knowledge base. If numbers of parts and their assembled product(s) can be encoded automatically and accurately, it not only greatly saves the workmanship, but also properly handles the part inventory management, purchasing policy and cost control in a logistics information system