OpenBOM Product Memory Platform turns files, BOMs, changes, and workflows into connected product knowledge.
Displace TV is redefining how televisions are mounted, offering a completely wireless, vacuum-powered solution that eliminates the need for brackets, drilling, or complex installations. But behind this sleek, futuristic product was a major challenge: managing an increasingly complex design and manufacturing process.
“I did not anticipate the overall benefit of the Solidworks integration” he says. “It was a big WOW! moment. Since then the scope of what we put in OpenBOM has grown. We can control more information, specifications,and requirements. OpenBOM forces adherence to a process!”
“With OpenBOM and Onshape I can join a team, and, with a relatively small amount of capital, ramp up a CAD, PDM, and PLM lite in a very short amount of time. The benefits to the organization will be immediate.”
CanMet Design, like many other engineering and manufacturing firms, struggled with the complexity of managing product data. Their process wasn’t just about handling CAD models; it involved tracking a vast amount of additional information—labor costs, assembly steps, paint specifications, and supplier pricing.
FENCEQUIP had always prided itself on innovation. As a New Zealand-based manufacturer of post drivers, they were known for their ability to create high-quality, durable equipment. But behind the scenes, they faced a challenge that many manufacturers encounter—the disconnect between engineering and procurement.
“One thing that was attractive was the low barrier to taking us several steps further than Google sheets. We could import directly from Solidworks, an existing Google sheet, or just type in data. OpenBOM functions the way we would expect it too.” says Garrett.
Jonathan brought OpenBOM to Tomcar to improve and formalize the agreements the company has with manufacturing partners. “I absolutely love that OpenBOM lets me share accurate, complete BOMs with vendors, partners, customers, my colleagues in Israel, and so many more.”, says Jonathan. “It is great for my team and great for the company. Simply put, before OpenBOM, we did not have a final BOM that was accurate or easy to share”, he says, “We needed a full product BOM which OpenBOM delivered!”
“OpenBOM has outstanding Solidworks integration and lets us take our designs from GrabCAD straight into OpenBOM.” “We started small with OpenBOM features, and gradually grew into it. The onboarding and support from the OpenBOM team are excellent.” “The cost analysis we can do now with a reliable BOM is very important to the company and the where-used feature lets us analyze the impact of a single change across the product line. We didn’t know what we were missing, neither of these features is available in CAD BOM tools.”
“Getting our BOMs out of Solidworks in Excel was hard. We would add some non-modeled items like hardware then have to manage all those additions individually each time we updated the Excel from Solidworks”. Using OpenBOM with SolidWorks and PDMWorks is much much easier, he says. “OpenBOM easily manages and tracks our part numbers” he goes on to say, “something as simple as finding where a part is used is easy with OpenBOM’s where-used command; not having to open our CAD and look for a part is a huge time-saving.”
“I love how I can easily add a property, as many properties as I need, to manage costs and other information about Bird Gard items, our existing system just could not do that.” “For example, OpenBOM can easily manage both an item’s Manufacturer Part Number and Supplier Part Number. I just add a column for each number and another for the URL link to the vendor’s product page, it’s that easy.”
“I googled API to get data from Autodesk Fusion…. And I discovered OpenBOM.” “In minutes I was working with the free trial, clicked Support, and received a reply in less than 60 minutes. That experience gave me enormous confidence that someone was listening to me as a customer”, Mark explains. “After some more browsing of OpenBOM, we had a call with the OpenBOM team, and felt confident that they understood the manufacturing CAD business process.” “We knew we could trust OpenBOM to liberate data from our design system and bring it to our company.“
“We bought OpenBOM because we needed to bring all our FusePLM data forward to a modern system. As of now, we have completely migrated from FusePLM to OpenBOM.” With OpenBOM we can support our sales team with accurate, reliable product cost and component information.“ Prior to OpenBOM, we didn’t really know how much an assembly cost. We had the components but couldn’t track or rollup any cost information to the upper levels. When you have thousands of parts, that cost many thousands of dollars each, it is important to get that right!”
“With OpenBOM”, We can quickly create a new SKU for a customer. OpenBOM reduces cycle times by allowing us to easily reuse an existing BOM, make a few changes, and have an entirely new BOM SKU ready to go to manufacturing. For example, we recently had a requirement for a new ballast enclosure based on an existing design, we easily reused the existing OpenBOM to create the new product. The entire process to reuse a product BOM went from one hour to 5 minutes.”
“It works great! OpenBOM gives my team what they need, without the overhead of large, legacy, systems”, he adds. ”Ease of use is what OpenBOM is all about.” We don’t have an IT department; we are just engineers – OpenBOM doesn’t need an IT department.”
“As the Nexa3D products matured we soon had a BOM administrator dedicating 20 hours a week to maintaining Excel BOMs. With OpenBOM we have no single admin. OpenBOM is largely self-sufficient, no dedicated IT person is needed. It just works.” “Looking back to the decision to buy OpenBOM over two years ago it was rather simple. We needed a solution with low capital investment. SAP and Oracle were out as they require full-time admin. We were lean and agile and wanted a BOM solution that would grow with us and suited to our company. No overhead of a complicated system”. “We looked …
“The real benefit”, says Rich, “comes when we hand off a reliable, accurate BOM to our suppliers and manufacturers.” “Generating an accurate BOM has gone from a day to a few minutes.” “The visual thumbnail of each item makes it very clear to everyone involved exactly what item we are referencing in a BOM.”
“OpenBOM helps our engineering team design and maintain a cross-functional design and deliver the information needed to my (internal) customer. Before OpenBOM, we didn’t have any systems integration. After a change, many separate BOMs had to be manually updated in several places, OpenBOM took our systems process to the next level giving us an integrated process from design to manufacturing. We selected OpenBOM for many reasons, excellent Fusion 360 integration, simple and easy import, and export to leverage our legacy data, and of course, the cost and customization to meet our …
“OpenBOM is a central feature of my business that allows me to work with many different engineering tools sets, adapt to various customer requirements, and craft and maintain a variety of deliverables; all necessary to meet the needs of each specific customer. OpenBOM’s item master catalog design lets me take a database design approach to components and properties. I like how I can organize my items and BOMs in much the same way as the physical parts, by category, vendor, availability, etc. I literally use OpenBOM to master items and output a BOM exactly in the format the customer …
“I was looking for a system that could hold complex BOMs and revision, control them in a sensible way. I have a lot of experience with large, expensive, cumbersome ERPs like SAP and others, I knew these big traditional systems were not going to be a fit at my company.” “We looked at many other systems, while most contained the basic logistical features we needed, none of the alternatives focused on the hierarchical BOM and revision control that was required by our industry.” “I needed an alternative and OpenBOM fit my needs exactly.”
“OpenBOM is so much simpler than Excel. As material costs have been changing so much lately, it’s comforting to know that when I change an ingredient cost in one place, it updates in all of our product recipes.” “We love how OpenBOM rolls up the cost of all the ingredients to the top-level finished product.”
“Before buying OpenBOM, our CMs had to go to many places to find the information needed to manufacture and build our products, or we had to find it for them, a time-consuming task, especially with revisions and ECOs.” “Now, with OpenBOM, we simply add the CM to our Team and share all drawings, Multi-Level BOMs, item definitions, ECOs, specs, engineering docs, and more all through OpenBOM.” “Everyone absolutely loves the where-used operation in OpenBOM. You just can’t do a where-used operation in an Excel BOM. It is impossible.”
“When we rolled out OpenBOM we just installed it and threw a ton of data at it. I know we would have benefited from formal onboarding but we just needed to get a BOM now – and we did!” “The OpenBOM team later helped me smooth over a few rough spots in my process”, he says. “The pre and post-sales support from OpenBOM is outstanding. The team at OpenBOM are experienced engineers and manufacturing folks and it shows.” “As our process has matured we are finding even more benefits with OpenBOM. As a company, we have to be fast and flexible, we do all the work ourselves, and …
“Something we didn’t see coming with OpenBOM is the benefit to others in the company who consume engineering and BOM information. We have non-technical people using OpenBOM to better understand where a particular item is used, how many of an item exists in a sub-level BOM, or any other item usage information, all without taking time from the Engineer.” “OpenBOM is used by the entire team at Kuva Systems and saves us many hours every week in BOM and inventory management. We understand costs and gaps and our inventory in nearly real-time.” “Simply put, we have a better BOM.”
“Before OpenBOM, we managed all products in a single Google spreadsheet. We had one large document for ALL BOMs, dozens of tabs, some dupes, some tabs had several products…..” “Another file was the Item master. I had to jump from one Google doc to another to ensure correct information when making even the smallest change.” “OpenBOM brings organization and reliability to our data. It’s an interlinked system that allows changing details about one part in one place and it is updated in every BOM.” As you can imagine, a modern lighting system has a lot of parts. “We…
“We started with Excel which met our needs for a while, but later as we matured and moved towards manufacturing, it became very messy”, she explains. “Our product is compact and contains a variety of engineering and component disciplines. We have optical, mechanical, electrical, off-the-shelf components designed for manufacture both in-house and by outside suppliers,” she says. “My team took the time and looked at a lot of alternatives before selecting OpenBOM”, she explains, “from the super inexpensive to the extremely complex, OpenBOM was the right choice for us.”…
OpenBOM brings CAD files, BOMs, changes, procurement, suppliers, and ERP into one product workspace, so your teams always know what exists, what changed, and what to build next.
Manage CAD files, provide PDM functions, and generate and manage multiple BOM types across engineering, manufacturing, purchasing, and service views. Plan purchasing, collaborate with suppliers, generate RFQs and POs, manage inventory, and keep product data aligned from design to order.
Plug OpenBOM into your existing CAD system, engineering environment, and business systems. Extract design data from CAD, generate derivative files, support integration flows, and synchronize product data across multiple systems and storage locations, including ERP, finance, and other business systems.
Give engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and suppliers a shared workspace to review BOMs, discuss changes, assign tasks, and collaborate in real time. Manage ECO workflows with revision history and approvals.
OpenBOM creates Product Memory by turning disconnected product data — items, BOMs, files, vendors, orders, revisions, changes, and decisions — into a connected, multi-tenant knowledge graph. It captures product context as work happens and makes it available for collaboration, automation, and future AI agentic workflows
Connect MCAD, ECAD, and software systems into one unified Bill of Materials
Beyond the file vault — SOLIDWORKS file management built for connected product context
OpenBOM supports a wide range of integrations with CAD, PDM, PLM, ERP, and cloud file storage systems. Check Integration Page to learn more about integrations, functions, and supported platforms.
OpenBOM helps manufacturers turn fragmented product data into a connected product memory.
Built as a global multi-tenant SaaS platform, OpenBOM connects CAD files, parts, BOMs, revisions, changes, vendors, inventory, purchasing, suppliers, and ERP workflows in one collaborative product workspace. Engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and supply chain teams use OpenBOM to work together in real time from initial design through production and order execution.
OpenBOM is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
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OpenBOM is a cloud-native product data platform for engineering and manufacturing teams. It connects CAD, BOM, PDM, PLM, change management, procurement, inventory, and ERP workflows in one collaborative workspace.
Growing manufacturing teams use OpenBOM to organize product information, manage engineering and manufacturing BOMs, control revisions and changes, collaborate with contractors and suppliers, and move accurate product data from design to production. Instead of chasing the latest files and spreadsheets across folders and email, the whole team works from one connected source and always knows what is current, what changed, and what to do next.
Engineering and manufacturing teams lose time and make expensive mistakes when product information lives in too many disconnected places. CAD files sit in folders. BOMs live in spreadsheets. Changes get decided in email and meetings. Supplier data is kept on the side. Purchasing and ERP systems receive product information late, by hand, and often with errors.
That disconnect shows up as real, recurring problems:
OpenBOM replaces that with a connected workspace. Files, items, BOMs, revisions, changes, suppliers, inventory, purchase orders, and ERP data are managed together, so everyone works from the same product information rather than passing copies between disconnected systems.
Product work does not happen in one system. Data moves between CAD, spreadsheets, PDM, ERP, suppliers, and procurement. OpenBOM connects that work in three steps.
Bring product data in from CAD files, spreadsheets, suppliers, and existing systems. OpenBOM extracts BOMs and items directly from your CAD tools, so you do not retype them.
Work on BOMs in context with comments, tasks, change tracking, revisions, and approvals, all inside the product structure instead of scattered across email and chat.
Move approved product data out to procurement, inventory, suppliers, and ERP, so business systems get accurate information without manual re-entry.
As teams capture, review, and flow product data, OpenBOM builds Product Memory: a connected record of how the product came to be. That memory is what makes future automation and AI workflows trustworthy.
OpenBOM combines the practical tools manufacturing teams need today with a modern product data foundation built for what comes next. The four capability pillars below mirror the capability section at the top of the homepage.
Manage CAD files, versions, derivatives, references, and design context, and connect them directly to items, BOMs, and revisions. OpenBOM gives engineering teams cloud product data management (PDM) without the vault complexity or expensive hosting of legacy systems, and supports all major CAD tools including SOLIDWORKS, Onshape, Autodesk Fusion 360, Inventor, Solid Edge, Siemens NX, PTC Creo, and Altium.
Create and manage engineering BOMs, manufacturing BOMs, and other product structures, with single-level, multi-level, flattened, and configured views. OpenBOM manages items, catalogs, part numbers, quantities, reference designators, cost, sourcing, and files in one place, built on a flexible graph-based xBOM data model.
Give engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and suppliers a shared workspace to review BOMs, discuss changes, assign tasks, and track activity. Manage ECO workflows, revisions, approvals, and release, with full history and traceability across files, BOMs, and decisions.
Turn BOM data into sourcing, RFQs, purchase orders, and inventory, then sync items, BOMs, vendors, and orders to ERP and finance systems. OpenBOM connects to QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Katana MRP, and others.
A Bill of Materials, or BOM, is the structured list of parts, assemblies, materials, quantities, and related information needed to design, manufacture, assemble, sell, or service a product.
A BOM looks simple, but managing it well is one of the hardest data problems in manufacturing, because it connects engineering, purchasing, suppliers, cost, inventory, quality, service, and ERP. When BOMs live in spreadsheets, the result is missed components, wrong quantities, incorrect revisions, duplicate part numbers, and delayed purchasing.
Most teams need a common set of information to keep product data organized and usable:
OpenBOM provides a super-efficient and easy-to-use user interface to view, control, and collaborate around the Bill of Materials.
OpenBOM allows multiple users to collaborate in real time simultaneously on the same data visually (a-la Google Sheet) style and present complex engineering information with visual and structured data set – images, links, structure, files, etc.
An item describes the part itself, and that information stays the same wherever the part is used: part number, description, unit of measure, manufacturer, supplier, and cost. A usage describes how the part is used in a specific product structure: quantity, reference designator, location, find number, and effectivity.
The same item can appear in many BOMs with different usage. OpenBOM manages both item data and usage data so teams can build accurate, reusable product structures.
A single-level BOM shows only the immediate children of an assembly. A multi-level BOM shows the full product structure with assemblies and subassemblies. A flattened BOM summarizes every component across all levels and totals the quantities.
Engineering often needs multi-level views to understand structure, purchasing often needs flattened views to buy the right quantities, and OpenBOM supports all of them from the same data.
A configured BOM holds the information needed to describe several possible product configurations. A resolved BOM represents one specific configuration after options and rules are applied. Effectivity defines when, where, and under what conditions a part or assembly is used, based on date, serial number, or configuration.
OpenBOM connects to the tools engineering and manufacturing teams already use, across CAD, PDM, PLM, ERP, finance, and cloud storage. The goal is simple: keep product data connected from design to manufacturing, purchasing, suppliers, and business operations.
OpenBOM is built as a cloud-native, multi-tenant SaaS platform designed for real-time collaboration across teams, contractors, and suppliers. At its core is a graph-based data model that powers the xBOM framework and connects CAD files, items, BOMs, revisions, vendors, purchasing data, and ERP records into a connected product knowledge graph. SmartSync handles multi-CAD extraction and file management, and standardized REST APIs connect to business systems without brittle point-to-point integrations.
In short, the architecture provides:
Traditional PDM and PLM systems were built around a single-company database, central control, and long implementation cycles. They can be powerful, but they are often too heavy, too slow, and too costly for teams that need to move quickly. OpenBOM takes a different path.
Most companies do not lack systems. They lack continuity across them. Files, BOMs, revisions, decisions, and the reasoning behind them get scattered across tools and conversations, and the context that explains why a product is the way it is rarely survives.
Product Memory is OpenBOM’s vision for closing that gap. It turns disconnected product data into a connected, multi-tenant knowledge graph that captures product context as work happens: files, items, BOMs, revisions, changes, reviews, suppliers, orders, and decisions. That connected context is what people rely on to make better decisions, and what AI agents need in order to reason, recommend, and act on trustworthy information.
Product Memory grows through the same flywheel teams already use every day: Capture, Review, Flow.
OpenBOM’s AI direction follows the Product Memory flywheel, with products entering the platform at each stage. The flywheel is how the platform becomes smarter over time.
| Stage and product | Status |
| Capture: CAD File Agent for SOLIDWORKS. The first AI application in the Product Memory Platform, delivering AI-powered file capture, revision control, and connected product context. | Available now for a limited set of selected customers. |
| Review: BOM and change validation agents. Designed to help teams review BOMs, validate product structures, find missing data, and assess change impact. | On the roadmap. |
| Flow: synchronization and lifecycle coordination agents. Designed to move and reconcile product data across procurement, inventory, ERP, and suppliers. | On the roadmap. |
Explore how OpenBOM helps engineering and manufacturing teams connect product data from design to production:
What is OpenBOM?
OpenBOM is a cloud-native product data platform for engineering and manufacturing teams. It connects CAD, BOM, PDM, PLM, change management, procurement, inventory, and ERP workflows in one collaborative workspace.
Is OpenBOM a BOM software?
Yes. OpenBOM is BOM management software for creating, editing, and collaborating around engineering BOMs, manufacturing BOMs, and other product structures, with single-level, multi-level, flattened, and configured views.
Is OpenBOM a cloud PDM system?
OpenBOM includes cloud PDM capabilities for managing CAD files, versions, references, and derivatives, and connecting that design data to items, BOMs, and revisions, without the complexity of a traditional vault.
Is OpenBOM a PLM system?
OpenBOM provides PLM capabilities including item management, BOM management, revision control, lifecycle states, change management, approvals, and supplier collaboration, delivered as a flexible cloud platform.
Does OpenBOM integrate with ERP systems?
Yes. OpenBOM integrates with ERP, accounting, and MRP systems including QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, and Katana MRP, moving items, BOMs, vendors, and orders from engineering into business systems.
What is xBOM?
xBOM is OpenBOM’s approach to managing multiple BOM types and product structures across the lifecycle, including engineering, manufacturing, and configured BOMs, on a single flexible, graph-based data model.
What is Product Memory?
Product Memory is OpenBOM’s connected context layer. It turns files, BOMs, revisions, changes, reviews, suppliers, orders, and decisions into a knowledge graph that teams reuse and that AI agents can reason on.
Is the OpenBOM CAD File Agent available?
The CAD File Agent for SOLIDWORKS is available now for a limited set of selected customers. The Review and Flow agents are on the roadmap.
What makes OpenBOM different from legacy PDM and PLM?
OpenBOM is cloud-native, multi-tenant, collaborative, and connected by design. It pairs familiar, spreadsheet-like usability with BOM management, change control, procurement, ERP integration, and a Product Memory foundation for AI.
