A bill of materials simplifies project management, allows precise inventory tracking, and enhances production planning. It also helps engineers to organize component documentation in a structured manner.
This BOM macro lets you quickly create a Bill of Material in Excel and display thumbnails for each visible component in your assembly. The macro is compatible with Solidworks 2017 and up.
Parts
As with all professional 3D Mechanical CAD software, SolidWorks provides a way to create a Bill of Materials for the product you’re designing. These BOMs are usually displayed in a table within a drawing. BOMs can be automatically calculated or manually created. The automatic BOMs are updated when you change components in an assembly or drawing. BOMs can also be exported to a comma-separated text file, or stored as a separate document from the assembly or component.
The Bill of Materials is a list of all the parts, sub-assemblies, assemblies, and raw materials required to build a product. This information is used for production planning and manufacturing resource management systems. It is a critical part of the manufacturing process and can be very helpful in making sure products are produced correctly.
BOMs can be created by selecting a specific assembly or by using the Insert menu. They can be inserted into a drawing as a table-based BOM or as an Excel-based BOM. A table-based BOM will update if you add or delete components, or change their names or custom properties. The Excel-based BOM will update only if you select the “Automatically update BOM” option in Tools > Options > Document Properties > Tables.
The BOM is a great tool for ensuring that you’ve included all the parts and materials needed to manufacture your project. A good BOM should also include the quantity of each item. The quantity of each item is crucial when purchasing parts for a project, and will determine how much your project will cost to complete.
Components
There are several different formats that can be used to create and share a bill of materials. These can include Excel, Word, and PDF. These formats can help you organize and document component details, estimate costs, plan production, and ensure accurate inventory control. The best format to use depends on the type of work you do. For example, if you need to share your BOM with others, you should choose a format that supports easy and secure editing.
SOLIDWORKS Electrical has a feature that allows you to import an Excel based bill of materials into a drawing. The process is simple. With a drawing view selected, select Insert > Tables > Excel Based Bill of Materials. Then, select an Excel file and click Open.
When importing an Excel BOM, the part number in the top level assembly must match the column name in the BOM. This is required because the custom property values in the part are compared with the value of the Excel file. If the part dimension or mass property parameters are changed in the part, the changes will be reflected in the BOM.
This plugin can also export a BOM with thumbnail previews to Microsoft Excel. This is a great option for users who need to send their BOMs to suppliers or manufacturers. To use this feature, you must have Microsoft Excel installed.
Materials
SOLIDWORKS lets you create a BOM from the individual components of an assembly, or import a BOM from an external file. A BOM outlines the parts, quantities, and descriptions of all items required for production, simplifying project management and ensuring accurate inventory tracking. BOMs are used by many different professionals, including engineers and designers for product development and manufacturing processes, and procurement and inventory managers for streamlined component sourcing and inventory management.
You can save a BOM as an Excel spreadsheet. This saved BOM is not linked to the BOM in the drawing; edits to one do not affect the other. The saved BOM is populated with the values of the custom properties defined in the document. For example, if you want the Qty or Item Number column to contain quantity or item numbers, you must define these custom properties in the part document. The saved BOM also reflects changes to the dimensions and mass property parameters of individual parts in the drawing.
A SOLIDWORKS PDM administrator can use the administration tool to control which BOM types are available for editing in SOLIDWORKS and when they are exported to a file. This includes defining which types of BOMs are available for viewing and updating in SOLIDWORKS PDM and in other ERP systems. The admin can also restrict access to different BOM features or BOM types using the BOM Toolbar options.
Sub-assemblies
Creating and editing a bill of materials (BOM) in SolidWorks requires careful attention to detail. For instance, it is important to assign parts and assemblies with unique part numbers. This is essential for preventing parts from being confused or mismanaged by users. Part numbers are typically assigned in an intelligent or non-intelligent numbering scheme, depending on the type of design.
There are several different types of BOMs available in SolidWorks, including single-level and multilevel. A single-level BOM displays all components in one long list, while a multilevel BOM is hierarchical and organizes the complete product with subassemblies at the top of the list and individual component items underneath them. It also provides information such as part description, cost and material codes.
You can control how your BOM lists parts and assemblies by changing the BOM settings in the BOM PropertyManager. For example, you can change the row number that is assigned to each component and specify whether or not to display a note for deleted components. The BOM Properties dialog box also includes the Configuration and Contents tabs, which provide more options to customize how your BOM displays data.
The Configuration tab specifies which configurations of a part should appear in the BOM. You can select or deselect configurations by clicking the checkbox next to each. You can also configure how to display the configuration name in the PART NUMBER column of the BOM table.