A BOM is often considered the key to manufacturing agility. The BOM is the digital representation of a product that can be developed for many different use cases. For example:
- • Connected manufacturing and service
- • Automated simulations
- • Artifact creation
- • Product performance feedback and traceability
- • Downstream processes in the product development process
A digital bond enables agility – and manufacturers are always looking for ways to improve speed and agility. In order to become fully agile, you should have a seamless flow of information between all of the teams designing, developing, manufacturing, selling, and servicing your products.
Using BOM management software, you can reduce the risk of errors or rework by eliminating the reuse of obsolete data. Not only does this save time in development and industrialization, it also ensures that suppliers, factories, sales, and service are always aware of changes with automated synchronization between the respective bills of materials.
Possessing a complete digital representation of a product, that displays one single source of truth, is extremely beneficial. It can help optimize your business processes, speed up time to market, improve product quality, eliminate mistakes, decrease costs, and identify errors early on in the design process.
The ideal digital product representation, or BOM, is simple and efficient enough for use across the enterprise. This is due to the fact each stakeholder – from engineering, manufacturing, sales, marketing, quality, and service – all will be using this BOM for various purposes. Also, by adopting a part-centric approach to managing your BOM, you can meet all stakeholders needs, while simultaneously encouraging collaboration throughout the entire process.
The first step is to integrate your product data, including CAD and ERP systems, into one repository. This simplifies the process of developing a BOM, due to the fact it minimizes the amount of interfaces to manage, decreases data latency, and simplifies data structures. A single source of data truth makes it simpler to manage the BOM throughout the entire lifecycle, while also ensuring data is accurate and timely. Many manufacturers achieve this by using Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software that include BOM management capabilities.
You can also streamline critical processes and interactions. With this approach, your product designers can create and manage a part-centric digital product that can be leveraged throughout the product lifecycle. Mechanical, software, electronic parts, and related artifacts can be integrated into engineering BOMs. This can provide your organization with a single interface to collaborate between domain systems – such as CAD and ERP. The PLM system ensures that everyone is accessing the correct product information and referring to the same data – whether you’re on the shop floor, part of the service team, etc.
Visibility into products while they’re in digital form allows your organization to make decisions that positively impact the cost to produce, assemble, and service products down the line. Downstream teams are enabled to easily learn about planned changes and consider the potential impact.
To scale operations, remain competitive in the industry, and elevate your manufacturing – your organization must advance past simple development processes. By utilizing the right PLM strategy and system, your organization can capture, configure, and manage product information throughout every step of the product lifecycle in the form of a complete digital BOM.
