My employer uses "descriptive" part numbers for the parts they manufacturer. Without going into too much information, "descriptive" part numbers contain information about the item within the part number, it could contain characters that describe the material used to make it and/or characters to denote its end use. I am often asked to create a report for certain collections of parts. These "collections" are identified by a range of characters in certain positions of the part number, and the sort order desired may not be in a simple sort order, I will explain what I mean by that later.
The "descriptive" part numbers I will be using in these example consists of three parts: