I'm looking over David's suggestion of using ProductCategoryRole. Multiple
manufacturers could be handled that way - then just ignore the manufacturer
field in Product.
So, we could have a Product Category called "XYZ Manufacturing Products" then
the products they manufacture could be linked to that category. The company
itself can be linked to the category through the party ID in the role of
manufacturer.
Manufacturers and Suppliers are different parties, btw. A supplier could provide
the same part from several manufacturers.
Chris Howe wrote:
Technically, I would think you should make them two
separate products and then relate the two products as
equivelents. But of course that depends on how
detailed the company wants to be. Aside from making
them two seperate products, you could treat the
manufacturers as seperate suppliers for the same
generic product.
However, I can think of an example where the current
structure is limiting. When the manufacturer or
product line is acquired by another company.
--- Adrian Crum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
There are many examples of standard products that
can come from multiple
manufacturers. If I have a hardware store and I sell
3/4 inch galvanized pipe
tees, they could come from three or four different
manufacturers. Should I have
a separate 3/4 inch galvanized tee product for each
manufacturer? I hope not! I
used the example of electronic components the last
time this was discussed - the
same holds true there.
It IS a limitation. It will come up again, and when
it does, I'll continue to
make the same suggestion.
Chris Howe wrote:
why would you have more than one manufacturer for
the
same product? wouldn't that make it a different
product? I agree that it would be better for a
more
generic product role setup, but if all the roles
are
addressed AND it's not limiting, why go through
the
trouble of refactoring?
--- Adrian Crum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I know about the manufacturer field in the Product
entity. What do you do if
there is more than one manufacturer for a product?
That's the limitation that
brought forth my original suggestion.
Why have a dozen different entities linking
products
to a dozen different party
roles? We could have one entity that links
products
to any party - regardless of
their role.
So, one entity could link a product to one or more
suppliers, one or more
manufacturers, one or more product managers, etc.
It
seems more flexible to me.
Chris Howe wrote:
The manufacturer is desribed in the Product
entity.
The only other relationship to a product that I
can
think of is the supplier and that is desribed in
the
SupplierProduct entity. Having a product
manager,
again is probably managed easiest by putting the
product into a productCategory and managing the
productCategoryRoles on that. Outside of those
relationships, can you think of another that
would
have to do with a product?
--- Adrian Crum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I had suggested some time ago a
ProductRelationship
entity - where a product can
be related to a party, such as a manufacturer.
Would
something like that meet
your needs?
Al Byers wrote:
I think I have a need for a ProductRole that
mirrors the ContentRole
entity. I want to associate a manager with a
product. Is there another
way to do this? If not, should I just create
such
an entity for this
custom use or should it be something to propose
for general use?
-Al
