Centralized CODING CENTER
Ongoing data quality maintenance is a crucial process to ensure data integrity. Most companies after establishing a standard for data configuration, passes the responsibility to individual employees. This often results in deterioration of data quality over time. Sunstream has been providing a centralized coding center for several of our customers for maintaining master data quality. With a quick turn around time, Sunstream Coding center ensures addition of new parts or processing of new purchase requests effectively maintaining the data quality intact.
Identify Material for Coding and Cataloguing – Setup Process
This is the step where we decide which parts are going to be required to support maintenance and should therefore be catalogued. This step is the most important step in the whole cataloguing process. Most organizations do this poorly and suffer consequences of not having catalogued the part or of having incorrectly identified the part.
Review Request and Catalogue/Code Items
Once the coding center receive request for cataloguing through internal Chat/ERP/MRP/PLM/Email/Phone request form, it is important that all the unique attributes of the parts be identified to prevent the wrong part being coded.
The request is usually reviewed and approved by an internal “Materials Management Team” to make sure that the supplied information confirms to quality requirements.
Coding Support team ensures that the item is not already catalogued and all naming and numbering conventions are correctly followed. Sunstream has developed a robust coding Process with strong supplier engagement methodologies through web, email & phone to source required/missing information like:
- Manufacturer Part Number Validation
- Manufacturer Name Validation
- Noun/Modifier Assignment
- Data Classification using Global Standards
- Attribute Value Sourcing
- Unit of Measure (UoM)
- Long / Short Description Writing
- Product Image Sourcing / Editing
In our experience of working with clients from various industry sectors, the common issue with cataloguing items is a lack of standardization of the essential material data on an ongoing basis. Coding center can provide a solution to avoid this issue.
Catalogue Coding Standards
The material descriptive and classification data from the suppliers can be variable, non-standard and sometimes minimal. Consequently this data needs to be manipulated and improved in accordance with a standard/convention.
There are numerous standards and conventions available, with the most common being NATO/NSN, eCl@ss, ECCMA(eOTD), UNSPSC. It is important that your organization either defines its own naming convention or follows one of the national or international standards.
Custom Classification
Sunstream is able to provide Custom Coding as requested by the customer. Custom Coding may include country-specific tax coding, various industry-specific classification systems, and any custom classification or coding system that has been developed and utilized internally by the customer.
Maintaining the Materials Catalogue
It is essential to keep the catalogue up to date as materials and suppliers change. It is also essential to ensure that data quality does not erode over time. We do the following:
- Incorporate change of essential material data as a result of obsolescence, change of supplier, replacement of existing material, design change or addition of a new item in your change management process.
- Assign clear responsibilities for addition, deletion, updates of the materials in the catalogue.
- Conduct frequent audits of the material catalogue and the cataloguing process.
The key to cataloguing is in correctly and uniquely identifying the right materials required to support maintenance and operations.
Good quality material catalogues deliver bottom-line benefits throughout the organization.
A good material catalogue makes maintenance more efficient and minimizes unplanned downtime. Not only does a good quality material catalogue assist in communication but it can help prevent unnecessary expense through the selection of incorrect materials, expediting, excessive stock holdings and rework.