I requested many releases ago, long before there was an Idea Station, that the Resequence Item Numbers utility resequences alphabetically according to manufacturer name. Release 2011 introduced this ability but it has not functioned correctly yet. The objective is to be able to have a BOM that lists all parts in order of Item number but also in order of Manufacturer name. This eliminates the need for a purchase list format BOM. One BOM serves both purposes. The panel shop sees everything listed by item number but the purchasing department sees all parts grouped by manufacturer. (see attached sample)
When the enhancement was added I noticed that when I have Siemens push buttons on the front door and other Siemens components inside the enclosure on the next drawing, along with AB, OMRON, EATON, etc., the Siemens components on the first panel layout drawing get assigned item numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., but on the next drawing AB picks up at the next available item number, and then later down the list is another group of Siemens components. The software is assigning first by drawing order, starting with the earliest panel layout drawing, and secondarily by manufacturer name. The idea to sort alphabetically by manufacturer name should apply project-wide.
Here was a fix for this on Autodesk Labs. I downloaded it and it worked perfectly. Pat Murnen created it. But then it was removed from Labs and has never been implemented into the software. This as been a defect since release 2011 and it needs to be fixed. My customers always have to manually edit the BOM to get the desired sort order.
