To illustrate, consider this common product – the Floor Drain. It seems straightforward enough but what grade is it – Institutional, Industrial, Commercial, or Residential? Is it Heavy Duty or Extra Heavy Duty construction? Is the body made from cast Iron, bronze, stainless steel or maybe even plastic? Is the floor drain designed to be installed in a cast iron, PVC or even ABS system? Does Is it have a round strainer or a square strainer? Perhaps it’s a funnel or hub drain. What about color or finish? And don’t forget - is it designed for vehicular or pedestrian traffic? And by the way, we are assuming that it is 4" and not 6" or 8". When you put all of these variables in the mix (and this is only a partial list), then it is not something "anyone" can manage properly. Someone who understands what you need for your business and how you approach takeoffs – your database guru – will need to direct the effort.

Once you have added the items to your database, the next challenge is keeping the information up to date. This includes labor units, pricing, and item details such as Catalog Number and Price Code. Again, there is no "Easy" button that can magically manage this detail.

To update anything in your database electronically, the first thing you need to have is a matching code. The problem for the database manager is that there may not be a reliable matching code.

Updating of pricing is the one area where everyone wants the “Easy” button. It would be wonderful to have but it doesn’t exist. The list of Price Codes in your database probably doesn’t line up with the Price Codes of the products that your favourite distributer sells. If you are working with your distributor to provide you with net price files, he may respond that they cannot match many items. So now it becomes a significant task for someone to line up the Price Codes for Manufacturer A against the equivalent codes for Manufacturer B. At this point, we are assuming that your distributor uses the standard UPC codes found in most estimating software. There are some large distributors who use home-grown codes.

To make it more interesting, if you are dealing with one of the national distributors, you may learn that they do not sell the same manufacturers across all of their branches, so if you open a branch in a new region, the effort expended for the first branch may not apply. Even when you get the matching done, the next challenge is maintaining it. This brings another wild card into play - the manufacturers and especially their marketing departments.

Marketing loves to have something new. Even if it is something old that has been tweaked to replace an earlier version, it is, of course, "the greatest thing since sliced bread – new, bigger, better, and, oh by the way, it has a new Price Code and Catalog Number and no, we don’t know what the Price Codes are for the old version. What would you need that for anyway?"

One other twist that can make it challenging to get net pricing from distributors is the "generic" Price Codes used for common items by different pricing services. Many distributors are aware of the codes but do not use them. So these create another stumbling block.

I hope it has become evident to the non-database management readers that your database manager has many challenges to conquer to provide your company with a quality database. To fellow database managers, I feel your pain. Battling through a difficult challenge with your database can be a frustrating process. And it always seems to take 2 to 10 times longer than you initially thought it would. But in the end, you can take pride in having enhanced the value of the database as a critical tool for your company.

Illustration by Angelo Katsaros