Bills of Materials (BOMs)

Learn about using Bill of Materials (BOMs) in Vault.

Note: The Bill of Materials (BOM) feature is available only in Vault Professional.

Every time a file with a bill of materials (BOM) information is assigned an item, a BOM is generated in Vault for that item. A BOM summarizes the information needed for manufacturing a specific revision of a part or product. The summary of items includes the item numbers, quantities, part descriptions, lifecycle state, and other properties that are required throughout the design release and manufacturing processes.

An item representing a single part typically contains BOM information related only to that part. An item representing an assembly typically contains BOM information for all parts in the assembly. Likewise, an item representing an assembly comprised of subassemblies and parts typically contains BOM information for all of the subassemblies.

What Can I Do with BOMs?

BOMs are a powerful tool for tracking a product because you can:

• Update them when items are added and removed from the design.
• Add custom items that are outside the design process, such as grease or adhesives.
• Compare one BOM revision with another to see what has changed between revisions. For example, you can pinpoint exactly which parts changed between revisions of an assembly.
• Manually create a BOM by creating an item from scratch, and then adding items to the new item's BOM.
• Save BOM View as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or a comma-separated values file (.csv) so it can be analyzed or formatted in other applications for custom reports and printouts.

BOM Rules

• Items that have never been released are displayed in their current state.
• If an item has been released, then the released revision is listed, even if it has been changed back to work-in-progress (WIP).
• When a part that is used in multiple assemblies is released, the new released revision of the part immediately appears in the BOM of every assembly in which it is used.

Important BOM Terminology

Knowing these terms and phrases will make understanding the help and BOM workflows easier.

Terms	Definitions
BOM row is turned off	Row is excluded from the BOM and BOM processes, such as lifecycle state change restrictions. Note: A row that is turned off may or may not have an item. When a row that doesn't have an item is turned on, an item is automatically created.
BOM row is on	Row is included in the BOM and BOM processes, such as lifecycle state change restrictions.
BOM Components	Rows that do not have an item assigned and that are turned off.