Lately I have been working on codebooks for a number of companies. I have come to a couple of conclusions and offer these thoughts to those who are making an activity codebook or recoding your current one.

  1. Don’t include letters in the codebook – use only numbers. I am assuming that the Activity Codes will become the Cost Code in Accounting. Cost codes are traditionally numbers (even before computers were around) and after many years of looking at both ways (mixed and just numbers) it just looks better. If you have upper level management who come from an accounting background they will be use to number only format.
  2. Keep the final level the same length of characters. Usually it will be a 5 or 6 character code. I like six since it gives me plenty of flexibility and verbally telling someone the code is easy to communicate. You tell them the first three, it registers in their mind and then the next three.
  3. Don’t try to make the code directly reference the material. The only exception to this is maybe the pipe diameter where I will end the code with the diameter. Other than that trying to make parts of the code refer to a specification for example is going to many many months to accomplish and in the end you will realize it was a waste of time. Let the description carry the information.
  4. If your company doesn’t perform the activity within a typical two year time frame don’t code it. Keep you codebook lean instead of having every possible activity. For example are you ever going to lay 108″ RCP or even 72″? Probably not so don’t include it.

Hope this helps in your coding effort.