Tuesday 9 September 2008

Database admin

I want to hire me a database consultant, I can afford about £20 a week, and whether thats for two hours or one hour, I don't mind, just as long as this database monkey knows their stuff and can either tell me what to do, or do it themselves.

I have wee questions all the time, and I think it'll be money well spent.

This database monkey could be anywhere in the world, doesn't have to be local.

Example #1:-

I have one table, PART NUMBERS, with just two columns, part number and part description
Then I have another table, PART SUPPLIERS, with loads of columns, part number, supplier, supplier description, supplier part number, price, MOQ, manufacturer, manufacturer's part number, and many more.

Should I start another table for PART PROPERTIES, like whether they are surface mount, stored in tubes or reels, capacitance, tolerance, resistance, inductance, etc, which will all be fixed to the manufacturers part number (if I have it) or just our part number?
Or do I just add extra columns in the PART SUPPLIERS?
If I start adding extra columns, this could go on for miles.

Example #2:-
I have a table called BOMs which lists how many of each part is used in each subassembly. Some of the sub assemblies are mechanical, some are packaging and some are PCBs

I have another table called COMPONENT LOCATIONS, which lists where on each PCB each component is used.

I can run a neat SQL queries which counts how many of each component is used on each PCB, and then I manually update the BOMs table from this.

It was be really cool if it automatically updated the BOMs table, every time I changed a component on the locations table. I have no idea ho to do this.

And to complicate matters, it would be neat if each change was time-stamped.

1 comment:

  1. sounds like you need an MS Access db and training course. Linked tables in Example 1 is the best way forward. Not sure about #2 - will have a think

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