Like an ingredients list for a chef, a bill of materials (BOM) is critical to manufacturing quality and consistency. The best BOM software solutions provide automated approval workflows and version control, streamlining communication between teams and suppliers across project life cycles.
This buyer’s guide will help you find the right solution for your company’s unique needs.
Cost Estimation
Having an accurate and up-to-date Bill of Materials is critical to the success of manufacturing your product. BOM software helps businesses improve efficiency and accuracy by reducing errors related to manual data entry. It also increases consistency when a change is made to the Bill of Material document over time.
A BOM can be used by a wide range of teams, including engineers, factory workers, suppliers and buyers. It is essentially an ingredient list for the product you are producing, and can be used for a variety of purposes, from production planning and purchasing to calculating costs and estimating lead times.
The BOM process can be automated with bill of materials software that streamlines the creation and management of a Bill of Materials and integrates with inventory for seamless insight into available and excess raw materials for faster production processes. It is important to select a platform that can serve your industry and business needs, as well as your budget.
For example, a 3D printing technology such as FDM, SLA, or SLS can be linked directly to the Bill of Materials, which allows you to trace components and their related content, such as drawings, specifications, and CAD models for increased product traceability. This provides the peace of mind that your company is using a secure platform that can be trusted by third-party contract manufacturers and customers alike.
Inventory Management
Managing inventory with a BOM system is easier than ever. BOM software streamlines production processes and increases efficiency. It is also much more accurate than spreadsheets, which can lead to mistakes. It helps manufacturers stay within budget and avoid scope creep. It also allows them to track the cost of a product, which is vital for planning project schedules and forecasting sales.
The best bill of materials software provides a variety of inventory management features. Some of these include a powerful version control system, which makes BOM revisions easy and transparent. It also offers real-time master production planning and scheduling, raw material management and multi-channel selling. It enables the users to centralize the operations of their business, which saves time and money in the long run.
Some of the most popular bill of materials software options for small businesses include Katana, MRPEasy and TranZact. Katana is a cloud-based MRP with an extensive BOM module that simplifies several production processes and offers enhanced management oversight. Moreover, it enables the users to automate several manual tasks and reduce order delays. It is suitable for both large and small manufacturers.
MRPEasy is another comprehensive BOM solution for manufacturers. It allows the users to manage simple and complex bills of materials. It enables them to create sub-assemblies and kits. It also tracks inventory for improved production and delivery processes. It also provides tools for reporting scrap or waste and identifying other processing opportunities.
Multi-Level Bill of Materials
The multi-level bill of materials is a hierarchical list of the components that make up a product. It is used to streamline production processes, reduce lead times, and improve quality. It can also help businesses manage inventory and reduce costs. There are different types of multi-level BOMs, including engineering bills of materials (EBOM), sales orders, manufacturing bills of materials, and service bills of materials.
BOM software automates the process of listing individual components that go into a product in a manufacturing setting. It also allows users to create item profiles for each part and subassembly to track them throughout the entire manufacturing process. This allows for more accurate estimation of the total cost of a product and helps avoid costly mistakes when ordering raw materials and resources.
Some manufacturers use spreadsheets to manage their bills of materials, but this isn’t ideal for a number of reasons. For example, it’s difficult to update a single component across multiple BoM levels and it can be easy for teams to make errors when entering data manually.
ERP manufacturing software is better suited to managing complex multi-level BOMs. It provides a single platform to manage all the functions that are needed in a manufacturing business, from estimation and quoting to scheduling and production management. It also has a built-in CRM that can handle customer relationships and support e-commerce initiatives.
Supplier Relationship Management
Like an ingredient list on a recipe card, the project “recipe” in a bill of materials helps to lay out what’s required to achieve the end result. These lists can benefit software developers, engineers, and even marketing or sales teams. But the biggest advantage is that BOMs help you track and manage cost estimates and production schedules to avoid costly mistakes.
Most importantly, bill of materials software enables users to collaborate across departments and external supplier partners in one platform for enhanced production planning. Many solutions offer version control to ensure that the most accurate and current bill of materials is always being utilized by team members – this helps to avoid costly errors in product design. Some also enable users to track changes with suppliers and communicate these revisions with the rest of their supply chain.
With this functionality, preparing and analyzing a BOM becomes much easier for manufacturing businesses. It can streamline several production processes, provide enhanced oversight and accelerate the overall production cycle. Additionally, it allows teams to reduce raw material ordering delays and identify unforeseen materials issues. Whether you’re in aerospace engineering producing plane wings or medical device engineers designing hearing aids, BOMs can greatly improve the efficiency and accuracy of your production process by linking the individual parts that go into creating your product.