{"id":233,"date":"2014-09-29T10:05:57","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T17:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/xpedition\/?p=233"},"modified":"2026-03-27T09:22:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T13:22:26","slug":"defining-the-perfect-taxonomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/2014\/09\/29\/defining-the-perfect-taxonomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Defining the \u201cPerfect\u201d Taxonomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Defining the \u201cPerfect\u201d Taxonomy <\/b><b>(Catalog Structure)<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A taxonomy is the \u201cclassification\u201d of elements otherwise known as \u201ccatalogs\u201d or \u201cpartitions\u201d; and is an important component in your design process to help users find the ECAD data they are looking for. You can imagine <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-234\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2014\/09\/xdm-blog-discretes.png\" alt=\"xdm blog discretes\" width=\"291\" height=\"355\" \/>that a confusing or complicated structure increases the overall design process and that the best developed classifications can translate into financial savings to your organization. Although these gains are difficult to measure, you can contrast this against the \u00a0<b>millions <\/b>of dollars that a company like Amazon will invest within their own classification models to help you shop. Specifically within your design process you may have taxonomies for designs, library parts (symbols, cells, etc &#8230;), reuse blocks, and component\/parts.<\/p>\n<p>Within a taxonomy, you can define properties as \u201ccommon\/static\u201d &#8211; characteristics against all objects or \u201cdynamic\u201c &#8211; catalog specific. An example of a static property would be \u201cDescription\u201d, and an example of a dynamic property would be \u201cResistance\u201d. Data management products can help you manage these taxonomies and their characteristic definition, but many customers ask &#8230; \u201cWhat is the Perfect Taxonomy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since you don\u2019t have millions to invest like Amazon, I\u2019d like to share my findings with taxonomies. I\u2019ve had the opportunity to view taxonomies from dozens of customers and many of the top ECAD data suppliers such as Digi-Key, Silicon Experts (now Arrow), and IHS. The only consistent thing about these component taxonomies is that &#8230; they are <b>NOT <\/b>consistent. I hate to burst your bubble but there is no \u201cperfect\u201d taxonomy. However, you can invest your time and effort in creating the \u201cbest\u201d taxonomy for your organization. To accomplish this, you must first keep in mind how your taxonomy can:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>easily integrate into your business processes<\/li>\n<li>deliver information to your users without confusion and clutter<\/li>\n<li>simplify the search and selection of (preferred) parts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Of course to accomplish this, the devil is in the details. In my upcoming blog series, I will be specifying how these tasks can be accomplished using our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mentor.com\/pcb\/xpedition\/library-creation\/?cmpid=9049\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">xDM Library (DMS) line of products <\/a>for Components, Libraries, and Reusable Blocks.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mentor.com\/pcb\/xpedition\/library-creation\/?cmpid=9049\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Check out xDM Library Learning Tools Today!<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defining the \u201cPerfect\u201d Taxonomy (Catalog Structure) A taxonomy is the \u201cclassification\u201d of elements otherwise known as \u201ccatalogs\u201d or \u201cpartitions\u201d; and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10431,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/10431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/electronic-systems-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}