@Jessica L are you using the display Name feature on the item that allows users to search by text strings? What about the item filter functionality on the sales order form that filters your items to only ones that can be added to orders (components that you do not sell for example can then not show up as a selectable item on a sales order)?

yes we use both of those, but we've just named our items very descriptively in the item number/name field and they end up being very long, which in turn takes a while for our sales reps to add multiple on the SO because they have to read through line by line to find the proper item