TOM.. I totally agree with you. You do have an assembly drawing that gives you the reference designation of a part and on a production job, with all the automation and transfer of information from a common database, who cares!!! In many cases, especially with high density SMT assembilies, you cannot put the ref des anywhere near the part, which only adds to the confusing. The MIL-STD IEEE Std 200 para 8.1, states that ref des must be on the PWB except: "Where space limitations preclude such marking". That being said, our circuit engineers, inspection and test/rework communities use them extensivly during the prototype/pre-production phase of a job and I would attempt to please them. Once passed that, I would delete them. Regards, Bob Vanech