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18-Jul-2007
Child items these are common item properties shared by all assemblies
Assembly details these values may be unique for this assembly
Source items these supplier source items are related to child items, and independent of assembly details
Source items do not change contents of these cells
Find Item locator on assembly drawing, so that assembly drawing does not have to maintain actual part number
Owner Company responsible for creating or specifying the capabilities and performance of applied item (usually the assembly owner, or "hom
Type Classification of the item, typically with a unique set of business rules
Number Item identifier, typically corresponding to an inventory location
Revision Data record iteration; best practice is that physical items do not have revisions, but their data records may
Description Summarizes the major characteristics of item
Quantity Number of units required for current assembly
Units Units of measure
RefDes Identifies the schematic and/or physical location a single instance of a child item
Supplier Company responsible for creating or specifying the capabilities and performance of supplied item (the "partner" organization)
Identifier Supplier's part number
UnitCost Cost of a single unit in same Units as child item
Extended Cost of a single unit, multiplied by the Quantity
Note: Many people hope to use Excel to manage bills of materials because it's commonly available, relatively cheap, and
very familiar. While we've tried to make a useable BOM template, the fact is that Excel makes a really poor BOM
tool compared to a specialized PLM database, and in most cases we don't recommend its use.
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Excel is a very cheap solution that could easily cost you a lot of money in time & errors.
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Function or usage
to be specified by BOM author
should not need to change contents of these cells
these supplier source items are related to child items, and independent of assembly details
do not change contents of these cells
Item locator on assembly drawing, so that assembly drawing does not have to maintain actual part number
Company responsible for creating or specifying the capabilities and performance of applied item (usually the assembly owner, or "home" organization)
Classification of the item, typically with a unique set of business rules
Item identifier, typically corresponding to an inventory location
Data record iteration; best practice is that physical items do not have revisions, but their data records may
Summarizes the major characteristics of item
Number of units required for current assembly
Units of measure
Identifies the schematic and/or physical location a single instance of a child item
Company responsible for creating or specifying the capabilities and performance of supplied item (the "partner" organization)
Supplier's part number
Cost of a single unit in same Units as child item
Cost of a single unit, multiplied by the Quantity
Many people hope to use Excel to manage bills of materials because it's commonly available, relatively cheap, and
very familiar. While we've tried to make a useable BOM template, the fact is that Excel makes a really poor BOM
tool compared to a specialized PLM database, and in most cases we don't recommend its use.
Changes in one place won't get propagated across all other assemblies. Each spreadsheet must be separately
discovered and updated (imagine changing the supplier source for a single screw or resistor).
Watch out for proprietary data, which may need to be cleaned before sharing with your supply chain (do you
want your new suppliers to know what you pay your current suppliers?).
Carefully verify that units of measure are consistent (no mixing "each" and "gram") and calculated to ensure
that the cost roll-up is correct. If a wire is specified in mm, and purchased in cm, will that conversion be caught?
When you decide to adopt a true BOM database system, you'll find that spreadsheets with little or no formatting
will import easier than highly formatted (and more readable) spreadsheets. This BOM spreadsheet template
will be somewhat useful for importing into a PLM database, but be careful about making significant changes
(for example, do not put supplier parts directly below home parts).
Ensure you have access to all released BOMs every time you revise an item. Searching across spreadsheets
to discover where a specific item is used is difficult, slow and error-prone.
Keep good records. There is no audit trail to identify why or when a change was made, or who authorized it.
Review and enforce business rules, such as item numbering and data revisioning, change approval authority,
and using approved suppliers.
Verify each item's release status (pending, released, canceled) and lifecycle (prototype, production, obsolete)
to ensure production assemblies aren't using prototype, unreleased or canceled parts.
Excel is a very cheap solution that could easily cost you a lot of money in time & errors.