Our company is also in the electrical field and while we came up with an item number system to get around most of this we run into the same multiple category issue which is subjective to the opinion of the person entering the parts into the system. The easiest solution Quickbooks could allow for is to: include the descriptions of items as a cross-reference so as you're typing into the item list it would also search the description for the item.

In our trade there is an official product designation (what gets used mostly but not what people call it), the name a supply house would call it, and the name a person in the field would call it; again when searching the list you have to guess what the item was entered in under.