<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  Project Module > Project parameters (detailed description) > Item designations 2 tab > Separator characters in item designations > The two main ways of handling item designations in cadett ELSA

cadett ELSA can work after two completely different principles when it comes to item designations and how they are put together. The traditional cadett ELSA way, which leans towards current international standards, is to divide item designations using separator characters. Each part of the item designation such as function (plant), location, and product is marked with a specific unique separator character like the equal sign (“=”) or the plus sign (“+”). This makes it possible to define item designations in several different ways depending on the demands and wishes in individual cases.

 

 

A complete item designation with several parts can for instance be written as one single line in the designation attribute of a symbol. This is shown in the "One single line" column in the table above. Despite the entire item designation being written in one single line of text, cadett ELSA can use the separator characters to distinguish between the different parts and split the complete item designation into the individual parts of which it consists.  It also becomes possible to use different forms of redundancy reduction, meaning to exclude parts of the item designation that are obvious from the context.

 

It is also possible to put some parts of the item designation into separate attributes, as an alternative and equally correct way to define item designations. Function (plant) and location have, for instance, been given separate attributes, which can be used instead of putting such information in the main designation attribute together with the product part of the complete item designation.

 

There are multiple substantial advantages with this way of handling item designations. Of course there are also some drawbacks. The main problem is that the system becomes sensitive to separator characters being used correctly, not only most of the time, but always. It is not possible to use the same separator character for different purposes. It is not possible to handle item designations without separator characters either. Furthermore, counting numbers and component type letter codes must be specified consistently, if the composition of item designations specifies that they should be included. It is not possible to sometimes exclude such a part, or when needed add an extra character or similar.

 

The limitations that are discussed above, may seem like pure academical problems, since current standards prescribe a consistent use of separator characters and a consistent handling in general. The reality, however, is not always that simple. A lot of companies use branch specific or internal company “standards”, which do not include separator characters, or which diverge in some other respects. Using the technique that is described above, that leads to problems. In order to offer a complete and unlimited support for such variants, cadett ELSA has been equipped with the opportunity to use so-called separator character independent item designations. This is in fact a completely different alternative method of handling item designations, rather than a variant of the standard method.

 

So, how is it possible to distinguish between different parts of item designations without separator characters?

 

The solution is simply to tie each part of the item designation directly to a specific attribute. In that way it does not matter which separator characters that are used, or if there are none at all. An important drawback, however, is that specifying complete item designations in one single line in the designation attribute, can not be allowed.

 

In other words, there are advantages and disadvantages with both methods. The traditional separator dependent method and the latter separator independent method, both have their bright and dark sides. For that reason, you can choose which one of them you want to use, simply by configuring the project parameters in an appropriate manner.

 

An important thing to note, is that there are in fact several variants of separator character independent item designations available.

 

In short they are:

 

•Separator character independent item designations with separator characters that are shown in circuit diagrams

•Separator character independent item designations with separator characters that are not shown in circuit diagrams

•Separator character independent item designations without separator characters anywhere

•Separator character independent item designations with non-unique (random) separator characters

 

The table below shows a simple example that tries to explain the difference between these four variants. Please note that the variations are much greater than so. There are in fact millions of possible combinations available. For example, you could decide to use other separator characters than the ones specified by IEC1346 ("=", "+" and "-"). Another possibility is to omit some of the ordinary aspects (plant/function, location and product) or to include additional aspects or other extra item designation parts. A third option is to have another sequence between aspects than the one suggested here. The use or non-use of levels for item designations is yet another possibility for variations in the use of item designations.