On the organization of electronic parts

The Tower of Koffers. Can we sort it even better?

Note: This page is heavily a work in progress. Once this work is finished a plan will be proposed.

Here at RevSpace we have an ever growing assortment of electronic parts, organized on various levels. While looking for parts is a fairly good experience there is still some room for improvement.

I feel like there are some challenges, some of which listed below.

1. Finding the group of components.
2. Finding the specific location of specific parts.
3. Exploring which parts we have.
4. Finding additional information about the parts.

The goal of this brief work is to research and, if it proves to be possible, tackle these minor burdens in such a way that it can be implemented at the Space.

Scope and risks

While the Space could improve on other related areas as well, such as the recording of inventory counts, the main goal of this work is to structurally improve the way in which parts can be found.

Some important aspects to keep in mind are the following actions.

Setting up

• Simple and cheap.
• Must be able to set it up within a single day.

Keeping it up

• Easy end-use.
• Easy editing.
• Sustainable over longer periods.

Background and structure

An opened Koffer.

We have quite some parts. Some participants have come up with clever logistic solutions which brings us to the current situation.

Storage structure

The main point of focus is the Tower of storage boxes.

• The boxes used are the Allit EuroPlus Flex 37-17 Assortimentskoffer (picture).
• Each Koffer is labelled which category of parts it contains.
• Each Koffer has an internal configuration of storage parts (Inserts), which allows them to be modular. Inside the Koffer there are two sections.
  • main section: up to 4x6 individual 1x1 Inserts can be put, or Inserts with dimensions which are multitudes thereof.
  • front section: The front section of each Koffer is a fixed mold with two smaller compartments and a single wide compartment. Inserts do not apply to this section.
• Koffers can be put at any location inside the Tower.

Let us define a compartment to be any main section Insert or front section compartment, designatable to store parts.

Usual routine

When we want to store a part, one or more compartments are designated to store the part by means of labeling them and putting the parts inside.

Problems of search strategies

Whenever you search for something, you are essentially doing one of four strategies.

• Explore: What a nice Tower! So many types of parts! Let me look what we got.
• Browse: Cool, we got 4000 series ICs. I think we can find a hex inverter in here.
• Locate: I need the 4069. Where are they?
• Lookup: I found the 4069, but what brand is it? I can't use any Chinese ones in this project.

Each such strategy rips open its own can of worms.

Explore

Exploring the Tower becomes more difficult if it is less organized. Obviously, it becomes much more difficult if Koffers are not located inside the Tower, which may force a user to look for missing Koffers first.

• This raises the question: how can we best organize the Koffers in such a way that...
  • people put them in an ordered fashion such that it makes the most sense; and
  • people keep putting them where they are supposed to?

Browse

There is no such system that aids us in browsing available parts, except for forcedly pointing our eyes directly at them.

Imagine you are looking for hex inverters. You know there could be multiple ICs doing the same thing.

• How can we best browse for parts that we (could) have?
  • How can we best identify them by type? Recognition is key. Do we even have any other hex inverters?

Locate

• How can we best search where specific parts should be stored?

Lookup

• How can we best provide additional information about a part?

Solutions: ideas

Let's try to come up with solutions which addresses the questions of each strategy. It's important to keep the key points in the scope in mind.

Explore

• Build a system where people can easily check which Parts we (should) have in stock. Ideally a digital Catalogue.
  • Put the catalogue on an easily accessible central place, such as a website.
• Make sure the referenced Part storage locations are fixed.
  • This requires the Tower to have some kind of markings as to where to store each Koffer.

Browse

• Categorize the Parts (for each type of part) on most important parameters, and make search queries filterable.

Locate

• For each Part in the Catalogue we should add where it is located.

Lookup

• Same points as listed at Browse.

Other notes

supakeen suggests to first asking ourselves what do we expect to have at the space? Such a question will guide us to prioritize on a base collection of parts and to make space accordingly. All other parts that we have will be a nice supplementary collection.

Atoomnet suggests to make per category an "exotic parts" box which are such obscure parts that do not belong in the main collection.