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Naming Fixtures and Parts

Thoughts on How to Name your Fixtures

Here are some thoughts about how to name your Fixtures and why a Naming Convention is a good idea.

What’s in a Name?

Which HVAC Unit needs a new compressor? Maintenance Systems need to keep track of hundreds of Fixtures and their parts, some of which are identical except for their serial number and location.  To make sure your staff can easily find and repair the right equipment, build that information into the name of your fixture.

Naming your Fixtures

The type of fixtures you manage or maintain and the way that you work with them can make a difference on how you choose to name them.  Facility Maintenance organizations that work with static location items may choose to include a Property Name or Location in the Fixture Name.  Companies that maintain equipment that is mobile may default to a Service Tag or Item Number.  Each Company’s naming strategy will be different and the same company may use a different strategy for different fixture types.  Here are some features you may want to include:

  • Fixture Type Data: HVAC, Hot Water Heater, Lighting Fixtures,
  • Manufacturer Data: Make, Model, Serial Number
  • Location Data: Address, Tenant Suite, Property, Ownership
  • Instance Data: Pole 6, RTU4, Fire Panel 3, etc..
Describing your Fixtures

Fixture descriptions can offer a lot of detail to the viewer and even short descriptions can be very helpful.  A minimum of details would include the type of fixture and any thing that would help identify it such as its age, capacity or function.

An HVAC unit may be described as “ 2010 RTU6, 25 Ton, Gas Pack, 3Phase “

Naming fixtures doesn’t need to be Hard

The goal of naming your fixtures is to make them easy to find and identify for your employees, vendors, and inspectors.  If you are consistent, even a simple naming convention will add lots of value to your work management system.  Here are some ideas to guide you as you come up with a naming structure.

  • Straight forward: Maintenance technicians should be able to draw meaning from asset names. Don’t name a HVAC Unit as “NUMBER 6.” HVAC,RTU, or COND is simpler and is more valuable to your employee. JCPENNEY RTU 6 is easily understood.
  • Consistent: Keeping your naming convention consistent will improve the data your system can provide you.  Make sure to be consistent in length and case. Add leading zeros to your numbers if you think a Fixture type may have more than 10, 100, or 1000. If you have 100 fixtures of the same type, the first fixture should include the numbers 001.
  • Unique: Each asset name should be unique to prevent confusion.
  • Short as Possible: Don’t include information easily found elsewhere
  • Allow for Expansion: Make sure you leave room for the addition of new fixtures of the same type.  Names that include numbers should allow for
  • Numbers over Letters: Letters can be much easier to interpret for employees and include information that numbers alone just can’t.
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