OpenBOM Key Concepts: Catalog, Bill of Materials and Views

What are the most important things you need to know when you start using OpenBOM? It is a good idea to start from key concepts of OpenBOM model. Today, I want to talk about them.

These are 3 key elements of OpenBOM Model: Catalog, Bill of Materials and View. You can jump to the end of the article to watch the video or to continue with some reading.

1- Catalog

You can think about catalog as a database of components or parts. It includes everything you need to manage — standard parts, engineering parts, end products, etc. Think about data which is always the same about this parts in all BOMs when you decide what properties to create in Catalog. OpenBOM Is absolutely flexible and allows you to define any property. Part Number is created by default and used as unique Id.

2- Bill of Materials

BOM (Bill of Materials) is actually a product you build. It includes all components (from catalog) and corresponded quantities. Part Number is a key. You can use catalog parts or free type data. Think about properties in BOM as unique instance property (eg. Quantity, Ref Designator). OpenBOM by default is fetching data from Catalog, but these properties are displayed in [ ] and they are read only.

3- View

View is a way to define what you want to see. Think about it as a lense. You can define user defined views with a specific set of properties. By switching or sharing views you can control what users will see in OpenBOM.

Watch the video in which I provide more explanations about these key concepts.

Conclusion.

OpenBOM has very simple, but powerful conceptual model allowing you to define a database of all parts as a set of catalogs, create products (as BOMs) and control what data to access or share using views.

If you have questions, please reach out via oleg @ openbom dot com. I’d love to have your comments and feedback.

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.