Master Index

Overview

An index of all raw material, parts, and assemblies in the Fabrication Diagram method of collaborative production.

The term "master index" has been used for years, although no central index seems to exist.

A central database is proposed in accordance with Naming and Identification.

The current proposal consists of a simple spreadsheet with three tabs:

Module Index: List of all modules with unique, unchangeable moduleID. Provides lookup for the other lists.
Version Index: List of all versions with meta info such as date, person, description. (Similar to git commits)
Dependency Index: List all dependencies of the dependency tree (see below)

Pro:

Central point of reference for all modules
Machine-readable -> can be further improved by using some open standard like xml with nice frontend
More structured than Dozuki
Better overview than with Dozuki -> or can Dozuki be improved to provide this sort of meta data and dependency graph?

Cons:

No visual rendering -> Can be solved by adding nice frontend (e.g. Dependency graph using Graphviz)
Some redundancy with Dozuki -> Can this information be extracted in an automated way from Dozuki? Or vice-versa? Discuss with dozuki developers?

A new web app is being created specifically for OSE: Master Index Software.
The master index is part of the broader area of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and has discussed before: CAD PLM.