Combining Blank Collections and Characteristic Families

[Steve Shanbaum]

In working on the standard with where we'd last left it, we've encountered an issue with the division of certain properties.  We have two objects that we'd like to combine in to one. 

Blank Collection :  Groups like lens blanks together, and contains an array of blank IDs.  Can optionally point to a Characteristic Family, which, if it does, enforces that all associated blanks share the characteristics contained in the Characteristic Family.  
Characteristic Family: An object containing the inherent Material, Design, and Treatments for a linked blank collection.  

What I don't like is the number of steps and amount of description it takes to link a blank to its material or inherent treatments, requiring this extra step of traversing through the blank collection to a characteristic family.  I'd like to put the properties that are on the Characteristic Family on the Blank Collection instead, and entirely do away with the Characteristic Family.  So that if these properties are present on the Blank Collection, they apply to all associated blanks.  I think that would greatly simplify understanding this bit of the standard.

For examples - 

Currently

{"Blank Collections": [
       {
            "ID": "BCO-YYY-000001",
            "Characteristic Family ID": "FAM-YYY-000001",
            "Label": "SF FF Polymer 1.5 - Hard Coated Pucks",
            "Blank IDs": [
                "BLK-YYY-001",
                "BLK-YYY-002",
                "BLK-YYY-003",
                "BLK-YYY-004",
                "BLK-YYY-005",
                "BLK-YYY-006",
                "BLK-YYY-007",
                "BLK-YYY-008",
                "BLK-YYY-009",
                "BLK-YYY-010",
            ]
        }    
 ],
 "Characteristic Families": [
      {
            "ID": "FAM-YYY-000001",
            "Material ID": "MAT-YYY-000001",
            "Design ID": "NA",
            "Blank Collection IDs": [
                "BCO-YYY-000001"
            ],
            "Inherent Treatment IDs": [
                "TRT-YYY-000001"
            ],
            "Required Treatment Types": []
        }
 ]
}

Proposed

{"Blank Collections": [
       {
            "ID": "BCO-YYY-000001",
            "Material ID": "MAT-YYY-000001",
            "Design ID": "NA",
            "Inherent Treatment IDs": [
                "TRT-YYY-000001"
            ],
            "Required Treatment Types": [],
            "Label": "SF FF Polymer 1.5 - Hard Coated Pucks",
            "Blank IDs": [
                "BLK-YYY-001",
                "BLK-YYY-002",
                "BLK-YYY-003",
                "BLK-YYY-004",
                "BLK-YYY-005",
                "BLK-YYY-006",
                "BLK-YYY-007",
                "BLK-YYY-008",
                "BLK-YYY-009",
                "BLK-YYY-010",
            ]
        }    
}

[tonyleblanc]

For myself, I agree - it seems unnecessary to have a separate characteristic family which is uniquely used by the blank collection.  I can't think of any requirement for characteristic family outside of the blanks.