Issue: Limiting Product Approval Applications to 150 Product Sequence numbers
Issue: From the June 2009 meeting minutes: The Committee discussed limiting number of products per application. DCA staff expressed concerns that several applications with high product numbers may be affecting system performance. Staff provided information regarding ISF (Information Systems of Florida) findings that their recommendation is to not have applications to have more than 150 products. The Committee recommended deferring the issue to the August meeting and directed staff to clarify the issue through consultation with ISF whether the issue is the number of products per line or number of products. Also the Committee requested that the impacted manufacturers provide detailed concerns to staff for consideration at the next meeting. Also if possible the Committee requests that the BCIS contractor be present to discuss this topic.
Background:
(1) DCA Staff emailed manufacturers that had the potential to be impacted by limiting applications to 150 products. Staff requested feedback from these manufacturers to provide the web developer. See attached for emails:
(2) Codes and Standards staff reviewed with the developer, Information Systems of Florida (ISF) to come up with options regarding limiting to 150 products. Staff provided feedback from the manufacturer survey. ISF explained that product sequence numbers (example: 4801 .1 , 4801 .2 , 4801 .3 ) are what should be limited to 150 see chart below. Searching and/or editing of sequence numbers greater than this may cause system-wide delays (lag), out of memory errors, etc.
Applications can have multiple series numbers or individual products per product sequence number or “per line”. This is available under the “Model, Number or Name” column in the “Summary of Products” chart at the bottom of the application. The catch to this is that the end user may have difficulty searching for products in applications that have numerous products in one line, therefore it is recommended to have the series number and model names stated clearly.
DCA Staff requested pros and cons of options for limiting applications to 150 product sequence numbers. It was determined that if the User is submitting an Editorial Change or Affirmation and the prior Revision # has > 150 Product Sequence numbers, the User would not be able to “Delete” Products on those Types of Applications (Editorial Change or Affirmation) based on Rule & fee structure. It is recommended to keep deletion of products limited to revisions and new applications.
Staff Recommendation:
1. Recommend limiting number of Product Sequence numbers to 150.
2. Recommend limiting series numbers to 10 under “Model, Number or Name” to prevent searching difficulties encountered by users.
2. Sequence number limitation is applicable to revisions and new applications.
Manufacturer emails:
Mr. Bigelow,
The issue here is size of the file that is uploaded into the system. It is not a matter of the number of products, although that would seem to be a logical “guess” for being the reason that the file is too large. The problems we have encountered have been because the BCIS requires an uplink of product and installation instructions for EVERY PRODUCT in the application. In the original version of the program, there was a link to a SINGLE file that supported all the products in the application.
This is the proper approach for submitting ICC-ES reports. These reports are SINGLE documents, with many pages, containing many products. For the last application to crash the system, my uploaded documents were based on a SINGLE 45 page ICC-ES report. The report contained 604 unique product listings.
Since the installation instructions are part of the document, a SINGLE upload would have provided ALL the information needed to convey the needed information.
If there was a link for both Installation and Evaluation reports, we would still link the report twice, for a total of 90 pages.
But, since the requirement was made to upload the documents for EVERY product, you then get DUPLICATE copies of the 90 pages, for a total of:
90 X 604 = 54,360 pages. This is a pure waste of drive space. It is not possible to disassemble the reports, so they must be uploaded as a complete document for reference. The entire application could have been done with a single link of 45 pages, as was done in the 2001 version of the Product Approval Applications.
The FL822 application had 54,360 – 45 = 54,315 more pages than needed, simply because of the processes that DCA established in making the website work the way that it does.
Another problem that was created from the initial application process was that EACH product needed to be uploaded as a separate line item. This was done because the original applications were uploaded by a “batch” file that I wrote to be able to create the reports by the deadline that was established for Product Approval.
The current FL822 application was “re-loaded” by applying as a new application, using groupings of products and then renamed to link back to the original reports.
The total number of lines was cut by more than 80 % as a result.
As the system now exists, we are able to group products into single lines, and refer the uploaded documents to more than a dozen product listings. Consequently, the number of pages uploaded has been greatly reduced.
I believe this is the entire issue: limiting the number of uploaded pages.
In the future I don't see a problem with the system just as it currently operates. We demonstrated this with the UPLOAD of FL12523, that was renamed FL822. With the decreased number of listings, we still were able to upload over 600 unique products without overloading the system.
I think you are on the wrong track trying to limit product numbers. You need to limit LINE NUMBERS, while allowing multiple product entries per line.
However, in the interest of saving drive space, it would be best to provide a SINGLE LINK for all ICC-ES reports, or similar reports, where all the products are grouped into a single report. It makes no sense to upload the same document countless times, simply so the link is located at the particular product line within the application.
That said, I don't anticipate problems with future applications if Line numbers are limited to 150. I try to consolidate applications whenever possible, but also have tried to maintain an historical link so that anyone can reference an OLD application and know what the loads and limitations on the products were at the time an older application was submitted. Most often there are no changes, but it good to be able to go back and look at the old evaluation report. The history link allows people to do that, provided the numbering system remains consistent.
I will try to attend the meeting next month in Melbourne to join in on the discussion.
Regards,
Robert Lutz, P.E.
USP Structural Connectors
Largo , Florida 33773
727-536-7891
Gentlemen-
Thank you for contacting us on this matter.
Simpson Strong-Tie frequently does have applications containing more than 150 products. This is because the ICC-ES Evaluation Report on which the application is based contains more than 150 products.
For previous code editions, we used more than one evaluation report per application, and some of our older applications had over 200 products. However, recently we made the decision to have only one evaluation report per application.
In order to reduce the number of times we have to upload evaluation reports and installation instructions, we have been grouping several products on one line of the application, with each product separated by a comma.
A good example is FL10667, which contains about 486 pruducts, but only 125 lines due to grouping related products on one line. Another example of this is FL10856, which contains 133 products, but only 19 lines.
I have found that there is a practical limit on the number of products per line due to the space in the input box, but this has not been a problem.
If the limit is set at 150 lines, with no specified limit on the number of products per line or per application, there will not be a negative impact on Simpson Strong-Tie.
Further, as was raised in testimony, it would be of great assistance to us if the programmers could allow the BCIS the option to accept an evaluation report and installation instructions only once each and apply those to all products on that application, when all the products use the same evaluation report and installation instructions. This could possibly save storage space also.
Thank you again for considering our input to the process.
Randy Shackelford
Simpson Strong-Tie
800-999-5099
rshackelford@strongtie.com