The SUBSTR function call has too many arguments

[Astounding]

I'm not sure what you want to have happen when you hit a "101".  If you want all your "part#" variables to remain missing, just skip doing anything for the "101"s:

DO i=1 to 54;
   	if original{i} ne '101' then DO j=1 to 3;
      new{i,j} = substr(original{i}, 2*j-1);
   	END;
	END;
	
	DROP 
	i j;

[_maldini_]

@Astounding Thank you for sticking w/ me. I appreciate your efforts to guide me towards figuring it out for myself.