We use N12 and TC 11.4. Currently we have use NX Material attribute to manage which steel quality the part is made of, for example S275JR and a customized attribute to manage the exact profile, for example a square tube 40x40x4mm. So we use the OOTB NX material atribute and just add a field with the rest of information we need to determine which material is the part made from.
This is good for our draftings where we call for this two atributes in the part list so our production workmates can read which material they need for manufacturing the part.
But from the purchasing department point of view it is different as they need to match the part with just one item in our ERP database which is a square tube bar 40x40x4 made from S275JR steel and 6 meters long. The lenght is not a problem because we manage it with other fields and we are happy how it works.
My question is how other comanies manage to match the exact item from his ERP to the material+profile from TC/NX.
Is is a good aproach to create a field in NX/TC pointing to the item number in the ERP so when the import the BOM from NX/TC the ERP knows exactly which items they need to buy? Is it better to write code in order the ERP importation to read both fields and identify the item in the ERP database they need to buy? Other approaches?