openBoM fundamentals, Part 3: BOM and Part Catalogs (Inventories)

I’m adding a third installment to my previous articles covering openBoM ‘fundamentals’. To view the previous posts, click Part 1 and Part 2. For Part 3, I want to talk about BOM and Part catalogs (Inventories). I found this topic to be confusing for some of our users when they start working with openBOM. So I hope Part 3 will help.

You build a BOM in openBoM by creating a new one from scratch or importing an existing Excel spreadsheets or getting a BOM from a CAD system using one of our CAD plug-ins. This is how most of our users start their journey with openBoM. With any of those methods, you build a self-contained BOM that keeps all information about Parts and relationships between Parts such quantity, instance information, etc.

The next step is to get familiar with Part Catalogs also known as Inventories. We are in the process of clarifying terminology and hopeful make something better by using the term “Part Catalogs” to describe collections of Parts using in a company. The idea of Part catalog is to manage data about Part (sometimes called Item) and share this information between multiple Bill of Materials. The simplified picture below can explain the relationships between BOMs and Part Catalogs.

This organization of data in openBOM allows you to manage catalog of all parts and use part information in BOMs. openBoM is augmented catalog information in BOM — the grey colored data in BOMs is read only and when edited in the catalog will be automatically refreshed in the BOM. You can create multiple Part catalogs in openBoM and use different characteristics (properties) in these catalogs, for example, to manage electronic and mechanical components, etc.

The following step by step instruction shows you how to create a simple BOM and inventory (part catalog). I also captured these steps in a video, below.

Steps:

(1) Create a simple inventory

Add a few properties such as manufacturer and manufacturing part number, etc.

(2) Create a BOM

(3) Assign the inventory you created in step ‘1.’ to the BOM created in step ‘2.’

4. Add at least on property to the BOM, for example, Quantity, using the “+ Property” command. These properties are sometimes called BOM or link properties because they uniquely represent a Part instance in the BOM — as opposed to an Inventory or Item property which is shared amongst all BOMs.

(5) Add Inventory properties using Tools > Add Inventory Properties

(6) Now you are ready to add items to the BOM. Click “+ Item” and type or select Part Numbers. Select one of the Part Numbers defined in the inventory.

After you see the green “Refresh” button, click it so that the inventory property configured will be fetched into the BOM. In general, you don’t have to click “Refresh;” refreshing the browser does the same thing.

You should see result like this: inventory properties are properly added to BOM. These properties are shared between all the BOMs you create If you change Part status or any other property you added to inventory, the change will automatically be reflected in all BOMs.

(7) You can now save this BOM as a Template via Tools > Create Template. Mark the box, “Inventory configuration” to save the Inventory settings made to the original BOM.

(8) Create a BOM with this template. All the parameters such as assigned inventory and configured properties will be present. After you save the BOM template with the desired assigned Inventories you can use it to create BOMs already preconfigured with the properties of your choice.

Here’s the video:

Conclusion. Parts, BOMs, Catalogs (Inventories) are basic elements of Bill of Material management in every manufacturing company. You can start from scratch and define your data properties. However, you can also import a BOM from an Excel spreadsheets and CAD models. We are working to organize the process of BOM management make it simple and easy. I appreciate your comments and feedback. Let’s talk.

Best, Oleg @ openbom.com

PS. We should know each other better. If you live in a Greater Boston, please let’s have a meeting (coffee is on me). If you’re located in other places, let’s have a virtual coffee session — I will figure out how to send you a real coffee for our virtual coffee session.

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OpenBOM (openbom.com)

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Online tool to manage you Bill of Materials and Part Catalogs. Real-time collaboration for teams and supplier, sync data with CAD, PLM, ERP. More - openbom.com

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