What is a BOM (Bill of Materials)?
BOM is well-known as a bill of materials and one of the most important documents for custom manufacture, being a manufacturer you definitely required BOM for production, without BOM you couldn’t imagine moving your head towards production. BOM bill of material is an all-inclusive list that you needed like- required parts, raw materials, items, and assemblies in order to manufacture a product. So it’s just not the end of BOM here, it will help you to instruct how to procuring of materials. It’s like you just think of any recipe in your head and BOM involves all the necessary components you just need to manufacture your product.
BOMs are structured in two categories
1. Single-level bill of material:
In a single-level BOM, you will get an accurate knowledge that how many parts you need to make up the product or asset shown once along with the quantity.
Single-level BOM is very easy to create because single-level BOM doesn’t show the relationships between components, assemblies, and, subassemblies used to manufacture a product. If a product fails by any chance, it will be backbreaking to determine exactly which component needs to be replaced or repaired.
2. Multi-level bill of materials:
A modular bill of materials exposes the relationship between components, sub-assemblies, and assemblies (sometimes called parent-child). A multi-level BOM sub-assembly could take in multiple components. Whenever changes will be done to the assembly (parent), it flows to the subassembly (child). Most manufacturers use multi-level BOMs for complex products.
Let’s Discuss the Necessary Elements of BOMs
- BOM Level: Multi-level BOM assists to assign each part or assembly a number to detail where it fits in the hierarchy of BOM. BOM level makes it easy for each person to understand the structure and all of the elements of the BOM.
- Part Number: A unique part number is given for each item within the BOM, which permits anyone included in the manufacturing cycle to reference and identify the parts easily.
- Part Name: Each part, assembly, or material should involve a detailed and unique name that allows everyone to identify that part, without having any cross-check from other sources.
- Phase: Each part is recorded in its lifecycle. Like it is common to use a term like ‘In Production’ to suggest the stage of the part or new parts are not been approved could be classified as ‘In Design’ or ‘Unreleased’.
- Description: Description stands for when each material is given all the inclusive informative description within a BOM. This element will help you and others to identify the parts and differences between similar parts and materials.
- Procurement Type: This element refers to the method in which each part is obtained. Suppose, it intimates if a part should be purchased off-the-shelf or constructed according to project specifications.
- Unit of Measures: Unit of measures stands for each inch, millimeters, or ounce it’s an outline to quantify the part of the material. It makes sure that accurate quantities are bought and delivered to the shop floor.
- BOM Notes: This feature offers a chance to involve other useful information to anyone referring to the BOM software. It might agree on a list of alternative suppliers or the specifications like a material, like an adhesive, should meet.