Re: vehicle to autoparts relationships

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 23:04:56 GMT
Message-ID: <sOp9h.24006$cz.365641_at_ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>


Phil Stanton wrote:

> Sounds remarkably similar to a recipe DB that I wrote for a flavour making 
> company where a flavour (Car)  was composed of (sub)Flavours(Engine, 
> Transmission) and ingredients(Nuts & bolts) Each SubFlavour (Engine) equally 
> comprised of SubSubFlavours(Fuel Pump) and ingredients (Nuts, bolts, 
> washers). This system could be bested indefinitely. In the end everything 
> was reduced to the basic ingredients. We then had details of all the 
> suppliers and their product details for each ingredient - i.e. Mssrs Smith 
> could supply 1" m6 screws reference 123 at £5.00 /1000 and Mssrs Jones could 
> supply 1" m6 screws reference ABC at £49p /100.
> You could then have form that showed all the components that used 1" m6 
> screws.
> 
> Any help
> 
> Phil
> 
> "javelin" <google.1.jvmail_at_spamgourmet.com> wrote in message 
> news:1164221611.287287.270280_at_b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> 

>>I posted an answer to someone's question, and realized I have more
>>questions than answers. Thus, I am going to post my scenario to get to
>>the question that I have:
>>
>>I have a challenge, to figure out what part of the vehicle to relate
>>parts to. I can't relate a part to the entire vehicle. Why? Well, a
>>vehicle can have, apparently, more than one engine configuration. For
>>example, I have a Honda Civic with a 1.5L engine, and it can come with
>>a 1.6L engine as well. Now, I don't know that much about auto
>>mechanics, but my understanding is that you can have some similar parts
>>for those two engines, and some different parts. Thus, I believe I need
>>to relate the parts to the engine configuration. However, that's only
>>for engine parts. There are also transmission parts. The car can come
>>in manual or automatic, so now you have different parts that relate to
>>the transmission on this particular vehicle. Going further (and getting
>>funner), your wheel base affects the parts you have, and then there's
>>the body style. Thus, you need to relate the part to the particular
>>application, not just the vehicle.
>>
>>All this to ask if my thinking is correct: is it best to create an Xref
>>table between each autopart category (engine, transmission, exhaust,
>>body, etc) and the parts table, or one large xref table between the
>>two, with the addition of a category field. The one large xref table
>>would have it's foreign key related to each of the tables that govern
>>their group (e.g.: tbl_engine.engine_id,
>>tbl_transmission.transmission_id, etc)
>>
>>Thanks in advance for the advice.

Hi Phil,

That's called a bill of materials (BOM), and it's a very common application. Received on Fri Nov 24 2006 - 00:04:56 CET

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