Representing parts Issue RBN-14

[Tim Turner <tjt@lsc.co.uk>]

Title: Representing parts Issue RBN-14

In the interest of visibility My response & comments to the issue are provided below;

Issue: RBN-14 by Rob Bodington (05-07-27) minor_technical issue

Should assigning_description be used to capture the parts description?

TJT Response:  just as a name may change over time, so might the description. In addition, multiple descriptions of the same part may be applicable.

I could not find a "assigning_description" capability or entity in Dexlib/PLCS anywhere. However, there is a skeletal representing_description capability (completely undeveloped) which suggests to use "document/version and document_assignment to represent descriptions that are assigned to items such as part." I assume that the suggestion is to document the description within the document to be referenced. However, this means that the description is not available to a processor until the document is opened and the contents extracted. A document (a subtype of product) also has it's own description attribute which would require another document to describe it.  A document needs a document_version and document_definition which also have a description attribute, which makes for a potentially circular & ambiguous usage. This makes me feel uncomfortable recommending or accepting this route without clearer justification.

In my mind that leaves 2 options; either assigning_identification or attribute_classification.

1. The description can be specified through C001 - assigning_identification where the identification_assignment.name carries the product description, and the corresponding external_class_library.class_name is set to "Description". However, this is not so elegant a solution.

2. The description could also be specified through attribute_classification where the attribute_classification.attribute_name carries the product description, and the corresponding attribute_classification.allowed_value, which can be an instance of external_class_library - whose .class_name attribute can be set to "Description", whilst the classified_entity (a classified_attribute_select type) has products (& most other entities) in scope.

Questions for consistency purposes:

1. Is the Organization specifying the description required to be identified (according to current C001 template, the Organization assigning the name is also required to be specified)?

2. Should attribute_classification also be used to represent the name (see issue RBN-15)?

3. Aside from this, if there are multiple names & descriptions assigned (thru some means), how should should we know which is the most relevant or intended for everday use? Is there a relationship between a name and a description which should be kept together somehow?

regards,
Tim

Note: attribute_classification has been suggested for other uses in the past but has so far (to my knowledge) still not being advocated for use in PLCS (in general).

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* Mr. Timothy J. Turner BSC(Hons) MSc, MBCS
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