What is Bill of Materials ? Why it is used & Types of Bill of Materials | Words of Engineer

What is Bill of Materials (BoM)?

Bill of material abbreviated as BoM can be defined as ‘collective list of all the material required for the building final product, which includes semi-finished, finished parts along with their quantity, unit of measure.’

Why it is used?

1.   Product define & costing –

On Production lines, it is not always possible to build the final product by referring the drawings. Due to variations in individual’s ability to interpret drawings & difficulty in finding parts position in final product drawing print can create delays in production of final products. So, to tackle this, final product is divided into sub-assemblies & all the part required to build the particular sub-assemblies are grouped together for ease of assembly process. This also makes product costing process easy & quick.

2.  Material Requirement Planning (MRP)

MRP is a technique integrated in ERP software which enable material planners to generate the material requirement of rough, semi-finish, finish  parts are needed for the final products with actual material required date, their lead time, responsible buyer & supplier details.

BOM Structure -

BoM structure is a breakdown of final product from higher level sub-assembly to low level component. Each sub-branch of final product labelled as ‘Level’ starting from 0 (Zero) assigned to final product & so on. These levels can be extended until single part found on product structure.

BoM Types –

1. Technical Types

 ·         Alternative/ Multiple BoM –

When same final products are built with different BoM parts known as ‘Multiple/Alternative BoM’ of that product. For example- Redmi Note 7s phone comes with 3 colour options, specifications of 3 options are same except colour. So, BoM of Redmi Note 7 has 3 alternative BoMs & as per the demand production select the alternative BoM in system

·         Variant BoM –

When different final products are built with common BoM parts are known as ‘Variant BoM.’ For example- It might possible that company may produce another mobile model using existing Note 7s BOM parts.

2. Usage Types – According to BoM usage requirement different departments maintains respective BoMs in system.

·         Engineering BoM

·         Manufacturing BoM

·         Sales BoM

·         Costing BoM