Two supply chain folks meet in the airport. One says, “Hi Jack, did you bring the BOM?”
OK, so humor isn’t our forte. But BOMs are. A good, clean Bill of Materials (BOM, pronounced just like bomb) is necessary for manufacturing any product. Seems like a no brainer, but it’s amazing the number of small businesses that build products without a good BOM (or drawings, but that’s a whole ‘nother matter). Often the excuse is that it’s outsourced; often it’s time to market; sometimes it’s just about those round toits (I’ll get around to it…).
A good, clean BOM is not tough to build. Oftentimes the basics can be automatically generated as the outputs of a CAD program. While this is a start, it’s not enough. A BOM, at a minimum should include:
- General
- A tiered structure–so that subassemblies can be identified and rolled up
- Specify the volumes for which it is costed
- A date and revision designator
- Fields
- Line item numbers–seems trivial but makes it much easier to ID issues and socialize changes
- Manufacturer (although sometimes this is part of a separate document, the AVL (Approved Vendor List)
- A unique part number and also the Manufacturer’s Part Number
- Quantity
- Unit cost
- Extended cost–unit cost multiplied by quantity
- Lead time
- MOQ (minimum order quantity)
Just be careful discussing the subject in airports.
Chuck