How many instruments do you manufacture ?  Do you want the serial  
number to be human decodable or will a simple computer application do ?
I am going to recommend that you use A-Z  and a-z and 0-9 for your  
serial number.  This gives you a base 62 digit.  Be sure to use a  
type style that differentiates between O ( oh ) and 0 (zero ).  A  
slashed zero should work.  Also make sure upper and lower case look  
very different.  A slashed Z would help as well.  You could order  
them 0-9, A-Z and a-z.  ( or whatever )

One digit will give you the years 2008-2069 which should be pretty good.
One digit should give the week of the year.
One digit would give you 62 model numbers.  Two digits would give  
you  3,844 model numbers.
4 digits for the serial number will give you 14 million discrete  
serial numbers per model.
( 3 digits gives 238K discrete numbers )

So a serial number like Fa05-34AB   would translate to
--year = 2008+15 = 2023
--week = a [base 62] = decimal 37
--model number is 05 [base 62] = model #5 ( decimal)
--34AB [base 62] = 3*(62**4) + 4*(62**3) + 10*(62**2) + 11*(62)   <--- 
decimal

cc


On Jun 24, 2008, at 9:37 PM, Mohit Mahajan (Lists) wrote:

Hello,

We manufacture a lot of different kinds of instruments (but each in
small quantities). Our serial numbering scheme so far is pretty basic:
ABCD-EFGH. AB tells us the week and CD the last two digits of the year.
EFGH starts at 0000 every year in January, and increases count with each
instrument manufactured. It gives no indication which model or what was
manufactured. This info would be given by a spreadsheet where the
description of the instrument is entered next to the serial number. So
we'd have to look up the serial number in this sheet to know what
instrument we're talking about.

I'd like suggestions for a serial number scheme that could indicate the
instrument model/type, date of manufacture (for warranty purposes). And
it shouldn't be too long, about 8-10 characters.

It would be great to know what schemes members here or their companies
use to number their products.

Thanks,
Mohit Mahajan.
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