Re: individual numbering in a inventory database

From: Rick (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 04/13/04 

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 16:02:01 -0500

It sounds like they want basically a serial number for each part. If the
pars do not truly have serial numbers, I would tell them that was a
LIMITATION of their old system and I would not build it into the new system.
If you you pull 15 identical widgets, why add the complexity of telling it
which 15 you pulled, and which ones remain on the shelf.

That being said, you would need an additional table to contain each part
with the part number (pulled from your current table) and a field for the
serial number. The table you currently have could count the number of like
items in your new serialized table to determin on-hand. When you sell
Items, I would pull from the serialized table and I would make them pull the
part by serial number (or by part and serial) if the serial numbers will be
duplicated from one type of product to the next.

Rick

"Ashley Langley" <alangley@email.unc.edu> wrote in message
news:407c41b4$1_1@news.unc.edu...
Hello,

I have an inventory database that I am working on for a small
maintenance facility. In the "old" database, each part was assigned an
individual number. The maintenance technicians are quite wedded to this
idea although they want the bells and whistles of a relational database.

Currently I have a normalized table structure where users can enter
information about an order that includes multiple parts. Right now I
have no good way of assigning an individual number to a part. I know
that it will require a separate table to stay normalized (with
individual part number and enough identifying information to match it
with the part shipment information); however I cannot figure out how to
automate the entry process so that a person can say we have ordered the
15 widgets and then find out the 15 individual numbers that go with it
(and make Access do the work of number generation).

Thank you for any insight you might have.

Ashley Langley