Within the ERP context, what is the difference between "smart" and "insignificant" part numbers?

 I think that Mr. Mohammad Tohamy Hussein has give a good answer 

This is a really good question, 

In any ERP when you create an item this item must have parent categories for example department, class, vendor ... etc, and then the part/ item number is created. 

If the item # is dummy or insignificant, every thing is fine all your report will work all your search will work according to the parent categories, but in some reports you can’t show the categories like the invoice

You will only show the part #, and this is because you don’t want the customer to know such information for example from where did you bought this item.

So you can show only the item # in the invoice + description + price + tax...

imagine a staff read this invoice can he know the vendor or dept or class the answer no he must check it in the ERP, so there is a waste of time,

Also it is an audit point in case of same errors or mistakes in inventory. to have smart #

I  think following article help you,

http://www.ultraconsultants.com/erp-systems-and-part-numbering/

http://www.tgo.ca/erp

Historically, we optimized the scarce hardware (processing power & memory capacities) by using "smart", "structured", or intelligent" part numbers. We used the part number not only as a unique identifier of the item but also to include some of the item's characteristics such as color, dimension(s), and inclusion of optional component types. This was largely accepted by all stakeholders then.

Two major things took place and these are:

1.       Some shortcomings of this implementation started to show up. Some of the main ones were:

·         The simple structure can't be used to represent different groups of items. More complex structures were used to identify different groups of items with different characteristics.

·         The increasing complexity implied higher rates of human errors in coding new items or using the current ones such as issuing red gadgets instead of the black ones which resulted in erroneous data which needed to be cleaned every now and then.

·         The rigidity of the structured codes hindered coping with evolutions in the items' characteristics like having different colors of an item which used to be in one color only. The structure must be changed to allow for identification of the new item's characteristic. Almost all systems didn't allow for changing the item code structure within the fiscal year and if changed at the beginning of the next fiscal year, the user lost trace with previous data.

2.       Based on Moore's law, the hardware capacities more than doubled every year. By the passage of time, the growth in memory and processing capacities eliminated the reason for which we invented the "smart" part numbers.

All modern ERPs utilized the growth in computing capacities to resolve the problems listed above and started to adopt the "insignificant" part numbers and allow for defining all the items characteristics as standalone data entities. "insignificant" part numbers are merely a sequence of digits without any embedded description or particular meaning. The major challenge was linking the new data structures to the old ones to preserve historical information and this was addressed differently by different ERPs.