Early preview — OpenBOM Part Catalog Extractor for Solidworks

There are some very cool news to share and I’m super excited to give you first bits of what we’ve been up to for the last couple of months in OpenBOM Solidworks integration development.
CAD Integrations are one of the main ways to get Bill of Materials data to OpenBOM. From a very early beginning at OpenBOM we partnered with CAD vendors and created rich set of integrations with CAD and other engineering tools. You can learn more about it on our website here.
OpenBOM core functionality was developed and large group of our users learned that Part Catalogs in OpenBOM is a great way to centralized data about parts that used in multiple Bill of Materials.
Until very recently the only way to create OpenBOM Part Catalog was to import it from Excel spreadsheet or create it manually. While there is nothing wrong with that, we learned from many of our users and customer that we can get a double effect not by importing Part Catalogs from Excel, but also by collecting catalog data from files in multiple directors, Dropbox folders and other cloud file storage drives (Google, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, etc.)
So, here is a very exciting news to share from OpenBOM — we are coming with a tool that will allow to grab data from multiple folders, process CAD files and intelligently create Part Catalogs in OpenBOM.
Imagine you have lot of Solidworks files spread out in multiple locations. Folders or Dropbox drives. To create BOM from Solidworks assembly (we do it now) and share with contractor is already great help. But as you move forward with advanced OpenBOM features, such as cost rollups and others, you realize that centralize data about all parts can be a great help. Thes catalogs will allow you to store data about price, suppliers, lead time and many others characteristics of parts.
Here is a short preview. New functions will be available in our integrations — create Part Catalog from assembly or create Part Catalog from a folder.
By selecting folder(s), OpenBOM will allow you to grab all your CAD files, extract metadata (including all Soldworks custom properties) and turn it into online catalog. Then you can customize it by adding cost, supplier information and many other attributes (thanks for OpenBOM flexible data modelling).
Then information will be intertwined with Bill of Materials extracted automatically from CAD assemblies or created manually.
The following video gives you an idea of extraction process (we will make it automatic and hidden after Beta version)
And this is an example how easy to create BOM from Part Catalog in OpenBOM. Note you can reuse Parts from Part Catalogs to create any BOM in OpenBOM. I this video you can see how to create BOM, add Parts from Part Catalog and calculate total price based on the price of Parts from a catalog.
Conclusion.
OpenBOM Part Catalog extractor will be a way seamlessly to convert your CAD data in online Part Catalogs, but also keep it in sync with CAD data managed locally using your favorite CAD design and data management tools (Eg. Solidworks, PDM Professional, etc.)
Our coming OpenBOM release will introduce you to a OpenBOM Part Catalog extractor BETA version. It will be included in OpenBOM Solidworks add-in and will work seamlessly from Solidworks environment.
If you have questions or you want to experiment or get information about coming OpenBOM Part Catalog extractor, please reach me out oleg @ openbom dot com.
Best, Oleg
PS. Let’s get to know each other better. If you live in the Greater Boston area, I invite you for a coffee together (coffee is on me). If not nearby, let’s have a virtual coffee session — I will figure out how to send you a real coffee.
Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my Beyond PLM blog and PLM Book website.
