PDFs, Specs and Links And how do they fit into my Bill of Materials?

Bill of Materials (or how companies call it sometimes “product structure”) is an essential part of product information. BOMs contain data about assemblies, quantities, effectivities, description, cost, manufacturers, suppliers. BOMs give you a way to define part numbers and manage essential information about items.

You can ask – what about related documentation? All files, documents, 3D models, drawings, specifications, certification documents, and many others. How to manage them? How to link this information to the BOM? Organizing all the documents related to your product can be hard. PDFs’, specs, photos of how things are assembled, links to supplier specs, drawings, scans and more are often needed to build your product but don’t always have a home in the BOM.

At OpenBOM, we often asked about what is our strategy to manage files. We stay focused on BOM management topics and purchases. However, OpenBOM relies on connected cloud storage to manage other documents and files. In the webinar earlier this week we discussed how to do so. Check this webinar – Steve Hess, Director of Customer Experience at OpenBOM speaks about best practices of document and BOM management.

Here is a video recording of the webinar:

And here is a slide deck of the webinar

Conclusion.

Badly management product information can bring you to a very messy place. PLM companies are usually speaking about “Single Version of Truth”. While this is a very common term, it often missing many documents located in different storages in the company. How not to miss it and how to collect all the information about the product in a single BOM? A good practice can make a difference.

Best, Oleg @ openbom dot com.

Let’s get to know each other better. If you live in the Greater Boston area, I invite you for a coffee together (coffee is on me). If not nearby, let’s have a virtual coffee session — I will figure out how to send you a real coffee.

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my Beyond PLM blog and PLM Book website

As you know, the business management of products is crucial in order to bring maximum value across the life cycles. If you want to learn more about PLM, you can also check the production life cycle definition in the provided article. Get in touch with us if you have questions!

Image by Jerzy Górecki from Pixabay