A parts book or parts catalogue is a book published by manufacturers which contains the part numbers and other relevant data for their products or parts thereof.
Parts books were often also issued as microfiche, though this has fallen out of favour. Now, many manufacturers offer this information digitally in an electronic parts catalogue (EPC). This can be locally installed software, or a centrally hosted web application. Usually, an EPC enables the user to virtually disassemble the product into its components to identify the required part(s).
In the automotive industry, EPC's are also able to access specific vehicle information, usually through an online look-up of the Vehicle Identification Number. This will identify specific models, allowing the user to correctly identify the required part and its relevant part number.
Famous quotes containing the words parts and/or book:
“Even in ordinary speech we call a person unreasonable whose outlook is narrow, who is conscious of one thing only at a time, and who is consequently the prey of his own caprice, whilst we describe a person as reasonable whose outlook is comprehensive, who is capable of looking at more than one side of a question and of grasping a number of details as parts of a whole.”
—G. Dawes Hicks (1862–1941)
“... you can have a couple of seconds to rest in. I mean seconds. You have about two seconds to wait while the blanker is on the felt drawing the moisture out. You can stand and relax those two seconds—three seconds at most. You wish you didn’t have to work in a factory. When it’s all you know what to do, that’s what you do.”
—Grace Clements, U.S. factory worker. As quoted in Working, book 5, by Studs Terkel (1973)