Bills of Materials (BOMs)

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a summary of items needed to manufacture a part or product.

A BOM includes item numbers, quantities, part descriptions, lifecycle state, and other properties.

Every time a file with a BOM is assigned an item, a BOM is generated in Vault for that item. BOM details differ depending on what the item represents.

• 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.
• 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.