OpenBOM Training Library Is Coming Soon
Happy Friday! Are you familiar with Never Ending Job of Painting Golden Gate Bridge? I’ve heard about the story during many of my trips…
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Check out our collection of articles on BOM management, manufacturing,
integrations, maintenance, and more.
Webinar Recording: BOM Types, Which One Is Good For You?
Going back to basics in today’s webinar and talk about the fundamental things – BOM types. Often there are tons of confusion around BOM…
Customer Story IMBU BV: We Like The Simplicity And Portability of OpenBOM. It Just Works!
IMBU has been monitoring and analyzing compression equipment in the most remote places on the planet for years and provides a proven solution which…
OpenBOM User Experience Improvements – Item Info Panel and Part Search
The first video is about improvements in full-text search in part search dashboard. The current OpenBOM search includes default fuzziness option switched on, which…
Nyriad is relying on OpenBOM to develop the next generation of internet technologies
New Zealand’s Nyriad LTD is a software company at the nexus of computational storage infrastructure. Together with OpenBOM and their partners, Nyriad develops technology…
How CATIM is using Autodesk Fusion 360 and OpenBOM to achieve outstanding quality
CATIM Bill of Materials requirements is as diverse as their products! According to CATIM Solution Architect, “Combining BOMs from desperate design systems was next…
Webinar recording: Techniques of Purchased Assembly Management in Bill of Materials
Companies buy 70% of parts of stuff used in products. Standard components, fasteners, re-usable stuff – cabinets, motors, pumps, PCB controllers, caster wheels, bearings……
How to work with multiple vendors and compare the cost
The procurement of components is one of the most important activities that stands between design and production. About 70% of parts in every product…
Heads up OpenBOM Roadmap for 2020
The last year was a huge success for OpenBOM. If you missed my earlier blog, please check – OpenBOM – Looking back in 2019.…
Next week webinar: Techniques for Managing Purchased Assemblies
The Holidays Break is over. This year, we will continue our weekly educational webinars about BOM management. Today, I want to announce next week’s…
How to manage EBOM and MBOM
One of the most complex things in engineering data management is to coordinate two BOMs – engineering BOM (EBOM) and manufacturing BOM (MBOM)… Oops.…
BOM for Solidworks – How to Manage Purchased Assemblies
How often you use Solidworks and have a situation where you model assemblies but later buy them as “purchased assembled” (bearings, pumps, etc). On…
Heads up: New Solidworks Add-in Settings and Data Model
Happy New Year! We are starting 2020 on the right foot by introducing an improved Solidworks add-in data model and user experience. Historically, OpenBOM…
OpenBOM: Looking back in 2019
A new year is an opportunity to look back and check what we’ve done, what is our purpose and what we would like to…
A Quick Preview of New Item Information Panel
The information in the Bill of Materials and Catalogs sometimes is very complex and contains dozens of attributes. Grid is a good way to…
How to stop worrying and embrace digital transformation in 2020
Just in a few days, we will step in a new decade. As always at the end of the year, we ask ourselves what…
BOM: Best Practices of Data Sharing – Right Data, Right Person, Right Time.
Everyone needs the information that is in the Bill of Materials. But everyone needs it to be delivered differently. Engineers might have an access…
OpenBOM Identified as High Performer in PLM according to G2 Crowd Winter 2020 Grid® report
A few weeks ago, we shared news about OpenBOM on G2 Crowd Inc, the world’s leading business solutions review website. If you missed that…
150% Bill of Materials using OpenBOM
PLM Philosophy blog suggested an interesting article about 100%, 120% and 150% Bill of Materials. Check it out here What is mean by 100…
Webinar Registration: Role-based BOM access
I’m always saying BOM is teamwork. A single person doesn’t do a BOM. A mechanical engineer can do his work, PCB design can do…
BOM Webinar: Who is who in Bill of Materials Management Process
This week we continued the serious of “BOM Basics” webinars and speak about people. Yes, I always like to say that technologies are easy,…
Early Preview – From Visual BOM with Images to OpenBOM Integrated 3D Viewer
At OpenBOM, we believe in the visual Bill of Materials. Therefore, almost from day one at OpenBOM, we wanted to allow users to share…
Online BOM and how OEMs can make money after sales using OpenBOM
The manufacturing industry is going through a major transformation these days. There is significant pressure on OEM to change their business models and transform…
OpenBOM Integrations with ERP systems
Communication between engineering and manufacturing isn’t simple. OpenBOM helps you to integrate with any CAD system (check more here – OpenBOM Integrations). Right after…
Bill of Materials Online Service and The Advent of On-Demand Manufacturing
The manufacturing world around us is quickly transforming and the biggest change I can see around us is the creation of online services. A…
Weekend Story: How to optimize product development using OpenBOM?
Product development and manufacturing is hard. Remember the time when you were able to buy a bad car? It is over. All the cars…
Bill of Materials Back to Basics: What does it contain and why to share it?
A few years ago, I was talking to one manufacturing company. They developed great products, but struggle with execution and manufacturing. I asked them…
Quick preview: Generate Part Number from Catalog On The Fly
One more feature request and the way to streamline the process of part creation in OpenBOM. Catalogs are the way to manage Item Masters…
Quick preview: Text Search in Bill of Materials and Catalogs
Search is one of these functions that everyone is looking for when it comes to data management. To be able to identify and isolate…
What is the Bill of Materials and what data to include in a BOM?
The bill of materials is something that often considered a simple thing. After all, what can be complex in a list of parts? However,…
OpenBOM Autodesk Eagle integration and Autodesk MCAD-ECAD environment
I’ve been attending Autodesk University 2019 last week in Las Vegas, NV. During Design and Manufacturing Keynote, Stephen Hooper Autodesk Vice President and General…
Bill of Materials For AI-Driven Product Development Decisions
Product Structure of the Bill of Materials is the lifeblood of product development and manufacturing. Think about every product that companies are designing, manufacturing…
BOM Management – How to manage data about parts in the Bill of Materials.
You can think about the Bill of Materials as a flat list of parts placed in the drawings. This is a simplistic and wrong…
VIDEO: OpenBOM Usability Improvements In The Last Release (November 2019)
I’m super excited to share with you more information about the last OpenBOM release before Thanksgiving break and to include several important usability improvements…
Purchased Assembly in Solidworks Bill of Materials
You’ve made a great design for a new product. Or you’ve made a new feature for an existing product. These things are exciting, but…
BOM Educational Webinars – Register and learn more about Bill of Materials Management
Want to learn more about how to manage data about the product you design, manufacturing and support? As much as BOM sounds like a…
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,…
What customers and users are saying about OpenBOM on G2 Crowd?
We are reviewing everything these days. From 25$ earbuds and 100$ hotel rooms to phones computers, apartments, trips… you name it. A consumer economy…
An Early Preview of OpenBOM Application for PTC ThingWorx Navigate
As the world is moving towards connected web applications, we are at OpenBOM are discovering new opportunities to integrate OpenBOM with platforms and applications…
Webinar Recording: Change Management
There is only one constant thing in the world. It is a change. Engineering and manufacturing companies are living and breathing the changes every…
Part Search Driven Navigation in OpenBOM
Ease of navigation between data is somewhat very important when you work with such complex data as the Bill of Materials, Catalogs, and other…
Item Panel Support For Multiple Catalogs
A new feature of Item Master panel is to support multiple catalogs. In the previous release, we introduced Item Master panel – a very…
Import Vendor List
Long-awaited feature to import Vendor list from a spreadsheet is here. Yay! Now you can import the existing Excel spreadsheet of vendors you’re working…
WEBINAR: Multiple Bill of Materials
The magic names such as EBOM, MBOM, SBOM, and others are standing for a specific domain of knowledge — engineering, manufacturing, planning, supplier, etc.…
PTC Acquired Onshape And What Do We Think About It At OpenBOM
As you probably heard, PTC agreed to acquire Onsahpe. The press release and additional materials from PTC can be found here. PTC is acquiring…
How to manage non-CAD parts in BOMs
CAD is one of the main sources of data when it comes to Bill of Materials. This is a starting point where the design…
OpenBOM Customer stories: Streamlining Bill of Materials and Purchasing Processes
Efficiency is a killer in all manufacturing companies. Better, faster, cheaper. You probably heard it many times. Many manufacturing companies, especially small ones are…
Heads up: New Part Search User Experience
Happy Friday! Today I want to review a new coming search user experience in OpenBOM Part Search. Those of you who tried this search…
WEBINAR: BOM on Drawings – Still Relevant or Old School?
Old habits die hard. BOMs and Drawings are one of the most controversial topics in engineering data management. Back in days when a drawing…
5 Steps On How To Configure OpenBOM for Solidworks Project
OpenBOM gives an amazing solution for Solidworks users. Think about finishing your dream Solidworks project. You’re almost done with your favorite design and you…
Your first Bill of Materials in OpenBOM
Once you registered to OpenBOM, you probably have a question – what to do next? As much as it is a very simple question,…
How to create Order BOM and Purchase Orders for Your Onshape Project
For every engineering using the CAD system, the design of the product is a lot of fun. But, when the time comes to order…
Flattened BOM Filter
One of the most critical features in BOM management is the ability to manage multi-level structures (BOM). Think about complex structure of assemblies, sub-assemblies,…
A Bill of Materials for A Cocktail Party
Food is one of the best examples to illustrate the Bill of Materials Management and manufacturing. If you think about it more, any restaurant…
Interchangeable Parts – New Part Number or Revision?
Earlier this week webinar about one of the most complex BOM management topic – interchangeable revisions and part numbers. Managing part revisions is hard…
BOM Management – Spreadsheet vs OpenBOM comparison
When it comes to BOM management software, spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets are one of the most popular. And it…
New Search Dashboard User Experience
One more quick preview of changes in the OpenBOM dashboard coming in the next release. It is related to the search experience. We found…
An Early Preview of New OpenBOM Dashboard
Simple things are hard. In the coming release, we are making changes in an element of OpenBOM user interface that was created a long…
Part Numbers – Intelligent or Just Numbers?
The question about Part Numbers, schemas and the way it will be organized and managed are always the topic that drives a lot of…
First Preview of OpenBOM New Item User Experience
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. From the first days of OpenBOM, we wanted to deliver a simple yet powerful solution for the Bill of…
Sneak peek of new OpenBOM add-in for Autodesk Fusion 360
I’m super excited to share with you news about the new OpenBOM add-in for Fusion 360. We’ve been working closely with many OpenBOM users…
How to create Autodesk Eagle BOM (Bill of Materials) using OpenBOM Add-in
If you’re using Autodesk Eagle for your electronic PCB designs, you know that one day you need to create Bill of Materials to plan…
Blending Design And Business Data In A Sensible Bill of Materials
Bill of Materials is the lifeblood of every manufacturing company and business. However, when it comes to the data, manufacturing companies are usually facing…
Part Instance Data in Bill of Materials
Bill of Materials aways sounds like a simple thing. You probably heard it before – BOM is a list of parts, what’s the big…
How to create Siemens Solid Edge BOM (Bill of Materials) using OpenBOM Add-in
If you are using Siemens Solid Edge to design products, one day you will have to create BOM to build an actual product. Even…
How to create Autodesk Inventor BOM (Bill of Materials) using OpenBOM Add-in
If you are using Autodesk Inventor to design products,it will be a day you will need a Bill of Materials to build an actual…
How to create SOLIDWORKS BOM (Bill of Materials) using OpenBOM Add-in
If you use SOLIDWORKS to design products, one day you will obviously need to create a Bill of Materials for what you want to…
How to Create OpenBOM Catalog From Bill of Materials
OpenBOM data organization contains Bills of Materials and Catalogs. If you’re not familiar with data modeling in OpenBOM I recommend you to check a…
How to create a well organized BOM?
This question is asked by OpenBOM users and customers more often than you can think about. Although you can think about BOM as a…
What is BOM (Bill of Materials)?
The question about what is BOM (Bill of Materials) sometimes drives controversy in manufacturing companies. It happens that different people see BOM different or…
Heads up: New OpenBOM integration with Autodesk Fusion 360 – Templates and Drawing Support
I’m very much excited to give a first preview of the work we’re doing to improve customer workflows and feature scope of OpenBOM and…
OpenBOM Export and Import Enhancements
The spreadsheets are part of everyday life for every single manufacturing company. People love them despite all the mess they can bring. And people…
OpenBOM and Network Platforms
I had a great honor to present at ConX19 – event organized by the Institute for Process Excellence. Check out more about the event…
BOM Management Educational Webinars – Request for Topics
I’m very much excited about our new BOM management educational webinars. At OpenBOM we accumulated a huge spectrum of knowledge about Bill of Materials,…
HEADS UP: Import Images from a Spreadsheet to OpenBOM
Excel (or spreadsheets) is one of the greatest inventions of IT for the last decades. Flexible, powerful and easy to use. But, it brings…
Import BOM from CAD systems using OpenBOM
CAD data is one of the main sources of engineering information used to create the Bill of Materials and extract additional data to organize…
Best practices for importing a BOM or Catalog into OpenBOM from an existing spreadsheet
Best practices of Import BOM or Catalog to OpenBOM from your existing spreadsheet The things are rarely happening in the vacuum. Usually, you have…
Create BOM and Catalog from Scratch
One of the ways to create a new BOM or Catalog is to create them from scratch. If you skipped the fundamentals of OpenBOM…
OpenBOM – Data Management Fundamentals
I’m starting the next level of OpenBOM Basics series of blog articles. In my first series (OpenBOM 101), I covered the main features of…
Company Subscription and Part Number Control
As we continue developing OpenBOM, we found a growing number of OpenBOM Professional Teams are demanding more advanced set of features. When we first…
Heads up – OpenBOM Integration with Google Sheet
We’ve been getting many requests to expand OpenBOM integration with Google Sheet. I’m happy to share some early information about OpenBOM import from Google…
Tips and tricks for Solidworks Part Number configuration for OpenBOM Add-in
Management of Part Numbers is often causes some confusion for customers working with Solidworks. The questions about Part Number settings are coming so often,…
Heads up: OpenBOM Company Subscription
Since the very early days of OpenBOM, we’ve been focusing on how to help engineers and teams to work together. OpenBOM unique real-time collaboration…
OpenBOM Solidworks add-in working with multi-body parts
Working with Solidworks multi-body part such as weldment can be tricky in Solidworks. Especially when you need to create Bill of Materials. In some…
NEW: Autodesk Fusion360 plug-in and BOM for Eagle
Autodesk Fusion360 plug-in for OpenBOM is going through the series of enhancements and improvements based on your feedback and requirements we collected. Today, I…
NEW: OpenBOM for Autodesk Eagle
Modern products are often a combination of mechanical and electronic components. Electronic wrapped in plastic or smartphones on wheels. You probably heard it before.…
Enhancements of OpenBOM Formula Editor and Calculations
The calculation is an important part of the Bill of Materials. I’m sure don’t need to explain why. OpenBOM does have some very unique…
How to manage colored parts in Bill of Materials
Colored parts often represent some level of difficulties when you attempt to manage it in Bill of Materials and inventory. Imagine that your company…
How many catalogs should I create in OpenBOM?
One of the questions often comes from new OpenBOM users about Catalogs – how many Catalogs should I create? This is a great and…
From Part lists to Multi-level BOM and Product Structure
OpenBOM data management gives you a lot of flexibility. While in general, I see it a very good thing and can give you a…
Filter Multi-level BOM for Make/Buy Parts
A few days ago, I wrote an article explaining how OpenBOM is managing the parent-child structure of information in Bill of Materials. If you…
How to plan my data properties in OpenBOM Bill of Materials and Catalogs
Even OpenBOM looks and smells like a spreadsheet, inside OpenBOM manages data using multiple databases. The concept of a spreadsheet is applied to OpenBOM…
Parent-Child Relationships in Bill of Materials
Earlier this week several customers asked me to clarify how OpenBOM can manage parent-child relationships. After answering on several questions, I decided to come…
Looking for OpenBOM – Quickbooks integration Beta Users
I’m thrilled to share that first OpenBOM integration with accounting package is now available. You can integrate between OpenBOM and Quickbooks Online. Obvious question…
OpenBOM Data Management Best Practices – BOMs and Catalogs
If you’re a longtime citizen of engineering and manufacturing communities, you probably heard people saying that if you have 2 engineers, you might have…
Referencing External Databases and Catalogs in OpenBOM
One of the questions I’m getting from users is how to create a link from OpenBOM to other sources of information. Engineering information is…
NEW – Multi-level BOM import from a single spreadsheet
Another cool new feature coming soon in OpenBOM. Many of you asked us how to transform your existing BOM spreadsheets into nested structure Bill…
NEW – Multiple Rollups in OpenBOM
When it comes to Bill of Materials, calculations is one of the most important things. Think about BOM as a recipe of what you…
UPDATE: How to insert OpenBOM Bill of Materials in Onshape Drawing
Cloud software is evolving with new features and functions. As such Onshape was evolving and introduced new user experience. Which made me think it…
First step-by-step video of Solidworks-OpenBOM-Quickbooks workflow
Bill of Materials is a lifeblood of your manufacturing business. It defines all components and assemblies you need to have to produce a product.…
Where to search for updated OpenBOM videos?
User experience is one of the things companies are thinking more these days. At OpenBOM we are thinking about how to help people exploring…
CAD-BOM synchronization using OpenBOM
One of the questions often asked by OpenBOM users and customers is how OpenBOM is merging data between CAD systems and Bill of Materials…
Heads up – New BOM and Catalog user creation and navigation experience
Earlier this week, I shared a series of articles about OpenBOM BOM and Catalogs. If you missed that, I will encourage you to take…
Demystifying OpenBOM BOM and Catalogs – Part Three
I’m coming with the final part of my set of articles about OpenBOM Bill of Materials and Catalogs. Check Part One and Part Two…
Demystifying OpenBOM BOM and Catalogs – Part Two
I continue my set of articles about OpenBOM Bill of Materials and Catalogs. If you missed Part One, please navigate here to catch up.…
Demystifying OpenBOM BOM and Catalogs – Part One
If there is something in engineering and manufacturing companies that I learn for sure for the last two decades is that terminology is…
Heads up – OpenBOM new formula editor
Formulas are important. After all, Bill of Materials is a recipe of the product and calculation and rollups are big part of main BOM…
Heads up – New features in OpenBOM Altium Designer integrations
All products these days is some sort of combination of electronics and mechanical design. It comes everywhere and creates a new level of complexity.…
Drill down into new OpenBOM data properties – Date and Currency
In this article, I want to share detailed information about new OpenBOM data properties – Data and Currency. Date Property The new Date property…
Heads up – New Property Type “Date”
We are expanding property types in OpenBOM. If you missed an earlier article, check this out – we are adding Currency property. One more…
Heads up – New Property Type “Currency”
I have to admit – this is one of the long-awaited enhancements of OpenBOM. But later is better than never. New property types are…
OpenBOM 101 – Automatic Team Sharing
Any BOM or Catalog in OpenBOM can easily be shared by clicking the “Share” button with anyone with an OpenBOM account using their email.…
OpenBOM 101 – Team Views
OpenBOM User Defined views is a very powerful mechanism that allows you only to see data you want or need to see in BOM…
OpenBOM 101 – Provisioning Team Member
An OpenBOM Team Admin manages and controls who gain access to OpenBOM within a Team or organization. Access is not limited to internal, i.e.,…
OpenBOM 101 – production planning and quantity gap calculations
The core function of production planning is to calculate how many parts need to be ordered to make a production batch. OpenBOM does by…
OpenBOM 101 – Order BOM and Purchase Order
The end goal of every design and manufacturing process is to assemble a product and ship it a customer. This is in a nutshell…
OpenBOM 101 – Vendor List
A Vendor List contains information about companies you’re using as a source of standard parts as well as contractors and suppliers. We call them…
OpenBOM 101 – Flattened BOM
To manage parent-child relationships is a fundamental function in the Bill of Materials. OpenBOM does it on demand by connecting Part Numbers. It is…
Sneak Peek – OpenBOM to Quickbooks integration
For the last several months since we introduced OpenBOM Design to Purchase solution, we’ve been asked by customers to provide integration with accounting software.…
OpenBOM 101 – How to add a company logo to BOM PDF export
OpenBOM has a flexible export function including a selection of properties, filters, sort, ordering rows and customization of a company logo. I want to…
OpenBOM 101 – Formula and Calculations
Formulas in OpenBOM are equations you create in a cell which performs simple arithmetic operations using the designated cells. The basic principle to understand…
OpenBOM 101: User-Defined Views
The user-defined view is a powerful mechanism that allows you to provide a custom way to present data. You can think about “raw data”…
OpenBOM 101: Bill of Materials changes, history and revisions
Nothing stands still in this world, change is the only constant. This old pearl of wisdom also applies to engineering and manufacturing. Once something…
OpenBOM 101 – Introduction to BOM types
In this video, I’d like to introduce you to BOM types. There are three fundamental BOM types – Single Level BOM, Multi-level BOM and…
Heads up OpenBOM integration with Altium Designer Improvements
Products are getting more complex these days. With an increased demand for high-tech electronic, smart devices and IoT, the number of electromechanical products and…
OpenBOM for Onshape – Split BOM
It is 21st century outside and digital transformation is one of the most visible trends outside. However, many companies are still relying on drawings…
OpenBOM Video 101: Search for Parts, Bill of Materials and Catalogs
Search is an important function in every software these days. At OpenBOM we’re thinking how to get Search done in the way it will…
OpenBOM 101: Real-time collaboration and simultaneous Bill of Materials editing
One of the most unique features of OpenBOM is to support data sharing and collaboration. Think about something simple and powerful? This is exactly…
OpenBOM 101 Video – Create first Catalog and BOM
BOMs and Catalogs are fundamental elements of OpenBOM reference instance model. Think about Catalog as a distributed database of parts, components, assemblies. Every component…
OpenBOM Reference-Instance Model Basics – BOMs and Catalogs
You probably heard about OpenBOM Reference-Instance Model already. If you missed that, this is a link to catch up. In a nutshell, Reference-Instance model…
Future CAD-BOM Relationships in a Service-Oriented World
One of the biggest dilemmas in traditional PDM and PLM software world is related to relationships between design and Bill of Materials management systems.…
The ugly truth about digital transformation – first, get rid of spreadsheets
Digital Transformation is one of the fanciest words in a modern lexicon of technologist, strategist and marketing people. Digital is such a sweet word.…
How OpenBOM Manages CAD and Other Files Using Connected Cloud Storage
You have asked me about files and how to store them connected to BOM items. Well, here you go! OpenBOM is not your typical…
DevOps for Manufacturing and the Urgent Need for Collaborative Software for Manufacturing
The manufacturing industry is changing. A long time ago, manufacturing shops were big and slow. Over the past 15-20 years, the manufacturing industry has…
How to Manage Bill of Materials with Parts Purchased from Multiple Suppliers?
Bill of materials is a recipe of your product. Everything you need to make, purchase, and assembly must be placed in the BOM list.…
5 Reasons Why OpenBOM is Ready to Replace Excel and Spreadsheets for BOMs?
In the world of business software, replacing spreadsheets or Excel is the most popular topic. Guess what? Almost every successful business software is doing…
OpenBOM Basics – How to Create a Multi-Level (Hierarchical) BOM
One of the most frequently asked questions about OpenBOM is related to multi-level BOM. Does OpenBOM actually support hierarchical multi-level structures? How to create…
OpenBOM Subscription — For a Great Multitude of Manufacturing Companies
If you visit OpenBOM website for the first time, you might be curious – who is OpenBOM for? The best way to explore OpenBOM…
OpenBOM Basics — How to Define Part Numbers in OpenBOM
The Bill of Materials (or BOM) is the lifeblood of every engineering and manufacturing process. Regardless of how simple or complex the product is,…
OpenBOM Fundamentals — Bill of Materials and Catalog
On the surface, Bill of Materials (BOM) is simple. This is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Bill of…
Friday Story: OpenBOM and Platform Business
А platform is one of the most popular words in modern software (and not only vocabulary). In the old days, a platform was usually…
Beyond BOM 101 or Why Spreadsheet is not a Single Source of Truth for BOM?
My attention was caught by the Dragon Innovation article BOM 101. Dragon Innovation is a great company, part of Avnet and providing consulting to hardware…
OpenBOM — Hello New Blog!
Hello OpenBOM users! I’m very excited about our new website and a new blog. For quite a long period of time, I’ve been blogging…
Start using OpenBOM today!