Design Item ID standardization
In my experience, the "Design Item ID" or Library Part Number as is more commonly known, was usually defined by the ERP system, as this one is usually the one with the most limitations in terms of flexibility.

In most companies I have worked for, the parts usually has a type identifier such as Res, Cap, Ind, and then a sequential number. The fact that is is just a number didn't create problems when searching for parts in the library, as Altium allows you to search with wildcards even in the description field, so looking for a 10k resistor was a walk in the park. The advantage of using a sequential number, and a simple type prefix, is that it makes it easy to keep consistency between users. The only issue I have found is that the part has to be created first in the ERP system, as that one should be the only authority to release unique part numbers, in order to avoid caos. 

Slightly off topic, is a neat feature of Altium that allows you to query the information out of an ERP system through ODBC queries. In this way you just need to type the data once into the ERP, and there is no need to repeat it into the Altium library.