Bill of Materials (BOM) Management Best Practices: How to Handle Part Numbers and Revisions

Bill of Materials (BOM) management is one of the most critical and most underestimated aspects of product development. In my experience working with hundreds of engineering teams, this is where things go wrong first. A BOM is your complete inventory of all materials, components, and parts required to manufacture a product, organized hierarchically: the completed product at the top, subassemblies in the middle, individual components at the bottom. A well-formed BOM includes part numbers, descriptions, quantities, and reference designators for every component in the assembly process. BOM management ensures quality control and consistent product quality across your entire manufacturing process.

Maintaining a bill of materials is never a one-time task. It requires a systematic process of ongoing diligence, regular updates, and combined input from engineering, procurement, and production teams. Consider this: on average, 70% of a product’s components are outsourced or purchased, making the BOM the crucial document connecting engineering to the supply chain. An accurate BOM directly enables inventory management, materials management, and supply chain visibility, preventing supply chain disruptions. When BOM management breaks down, you get excess inventory, over-ordering, and production delays that ripple through the entire organization.

This guide explains BOM management best practices and the relationship between part numbers and revisions, two concepts that cause significant confusion in engineering and manufacturing teams. It’s written for engineers, product managers, and operations leads who are moving away from spreadsheet-based BOM management toward a structured PLM approach. By the end, you’ll understand why revisions should be managed separately from part numbers, how interchangeable parts factor into this decision, and how modern tools like OpenBOM simplify the entire process.

Why Spreadsheet-Based BOM Management Tools Create Revision Control Problems

The history of BOM management heavily relies on the usage of spreadsheets. Many manufacturing companies still manage BOMs in Excel, a practice that creates predictable and avoidable revision control problems.

Spreadsheets defined the early pattern of revision control: each time a change was needed, a new file copy was created with the revision embedded in the file name. This approach became so embedded in engineering culture that even companies using PDM or PLM systems often revert to the same habits.

This creates two compounding problems:

Problem 1: Revision is treated as part of the file name

• Each new revision generates a new Excel file copy
• The revision number becomes embedded in the file name, effectively acting as a part number
• This makes traceability across versions difficult and error-prone

Problem 2: Data is exported and shared downstream as Excel files

• Product data is exported from PDM/PLM systems and sent to production, procurement, contractors, and suppliers as spreadsheets
• Different teams end up working from different file versions with no single source of truth
• This happens for two main reasons:
  • Existing PLM systems are too complex for non-engineering teams to use
  • PLM licensing costs are prohibitive, making Excel the default fallback for downstream sharing

The result is an entire data management ecosystem built around passing Excel files back and forth, one that grows more fragile and harder to control as the product and organization scale. The more versions of the same BOM that exist within a company, the greater the chance for human error, discrepancies, and inconsistencies across those documents.

What Is the Relationship Between Part Numbers, Revisions, and Interchangeable Parts?

One of the fundamental things that are often missed during the debates about Part Number and Revision is related to interchangeable parts. This is a deep topic that I will need to discuss separately.

For the sake of this conversation and article, what is important is to understand when 2 parts can have different revisions, but still replace each other in the production process. Which will make the process of part numbers much simpler.

As long as you come to not interchangeable parts, you better change the part number and eliminate a potential question about the usage of non-interchangeable revisions.

What to do with Part Numbers and Revision control in this case? You need to manage them separately and have a Revision defined separately and not used in the Part Number. By doing so, you will simplify processes and data sharing tremendously.

	Revision in Part Number	Revision Separate from Part Number
Traceability	Difficult across versions	Clear and consistent
Interchangeable parts	Creates confusion	Handled cleanly
Data sharing	Requires new files each revision	Real-time, single source
BOM complexity	Increases with each revision	Remains manageable
PLM compatibility	Poor	Fully supported
Best for	Simple, static products	Complex, evolving assemblies

Solving these problems requires BOM management software that separates part number management from revision tracking, enables real-time data sharing, and eliminates the need to distribute product data via spreadsheets. The right BOM software also provides the audit trail and access controls that Excel simply cannot offer.

Creating a BOM is a collaborative effort involving multiple departments – which is why engaging relevant stakeholders (including procurement professionals, manufacturing leads, and engineering teams) early is critical.

A structured BOM should define component hierarchy with accurate descriptions, part numbers, and quantities organized into logical subassemblies, feeding directly into process plans for production and procurement. Consistent naming conventions across all departments help identify discrepancies early and eliminate duplicates and ensure every team references the same data.

How OpenBOM Supports an Effective BOM Management Process

At OpenBOM, we understand the complexity of data management, BOM control, and revision management. A large number of our customers are deciding to use OpenBOM because they are sick of inefficient BOM management using Excel and they like to stop sending data to contractors and suppliers using Excel. So, what does OpenBOM do that can help to manage it more efficiently?

Item Catalogs, Part Numbers and Revision Control

OpenBOM’s item catalog separates part numbers from revisions, allowing each to be managed independently without creating unnecessary complexity in the product structure.

• Part number schema is fully configurable and not tied to revision status
• Revisions capture snapshots of item data including all metadata and attached files
• BOMs reference specific item revisions, maintaining full traceability across the product structure
• The same part number can carry multiple revisions without duplicating catalog entries.
• Every design change must trigger a new revision. This is the foundation of a proper change process and version control in BOM management. Without enforced version control, outdated component data reaches the production floor, causing non-conforming parts, costly rework, and failures in downstream systems and supply chain operations

BOM Change Management: How OpenBOM Tracks Change Process and Revision History

OpenBOM automatically tracks every change made to items and BOMs, creating a complete, auditable record of product evolution without requiring manual version management.

• Every data change is automatically captured and stored in the change history
• A dedicated revision command allows teams to formally baseline a snapshot at any point
• Revision numbers can be automatically generated or manually adjusted to fit existing naming conventions
• Change requests can be used to initiate and control the revision creation process

Real-Time BOM Data Sharing Without Excel

OpenBOM enables real-time data sharing across teams, contractors, and suppliers, helping foster collaboration across the entire organization without the overhead of managing file versions.

• Data is shared using the share command or automatic sharing rules
• Shared data includes all item, BOM, and revision information based on configurable settings
• All recipients always see current, accurate data without receiving a new file each time
• Excel export remains available for teams that require it, with revision numbers includable in the exported file name for compatibility with legacy workflows

FAQ

How Does Accurate BOM Data Impact the Manufacturing Process?

Accurate BOM data ensures the manufacturing process runs from a single, validated source – reducing errors, preventing use of outdated components, and keeping the production schedule on track. Inaccurate BOM data leads to rework, delays, and non-conforming final products.

What Are the Consequences of a Poor BOM Management Process?

A poor BOM management process leads to inconsistent product data, unauthorized changes, communication gaps, and misaligned teams. The most common result is multiple conflicting BOM versions circulating across departments, causing production errors, higher production costs, and longer time-to-market.

Should BOM Management Software Integrate with an ERP System?

Yes. Integration between BOM management software and an ERP system is a key step in digital transformation for manufacturing processes. The BOM defines what needs to be built; the ERP system manages the resources, procurement, cost control, and scheduling required to build it.

Without integration, teams are forced to manually transfer product data between computer aided design tools and other systems, creating version mismatches, delays, and costly errors in production planning and inventory management.

How Do Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) Support BOM Change Management Process?

Engineering Change Orders (ECOs) are formal documents that record, authorize, and communicate every modification made to a Bill of Materials, whether replacing a critical component or updating a specification. They ensure that every BOM update is traceable, approved, and visible to all affected departments – preventing unauthorized changes from reaching production and maintaining a complete audit trail across the product lifecycle.

Digital Transformation in BOM Management: Key Takeaways

Transitioning from spreadsheets to dedicated BOM management software (whether PLM, ERP, service BOM tools, or a purpose-built tool like OpenBOM) prevents versioning errors, eliminates data silos to streamline collaboration across teams, and reduces the associated costs of manual rework and error correction. Controlling costs in manufacturing starts with controlling the data.

Run scheduled audits of the bill of materials to identify obsolete parts, outdated specs, and regulatory compliance gaps. Keeping a detailed BOM that reflects current production reality is a core quality assurance practice and should be a standard part of any BOM management process.

Real-time updates ensure every team always works with up to date BOMs and product data, enabling smoother transitions from design through manufacturing and faster product introduction, leading to improved supply chain visibility, production efficiency, reduced lead times, and better customer satisfaction.

Effective BOM management gives manufacturers a competitive edge through increased overall productivity and the agility to respond to changing market demands by ensuring every team works from a single, accurate, up-to-date source of truth.

The debates about the usage of Revision in Part Numbers go way back to the days when Excel (or spreadsheet) was the main BOM management tool. Old habits die hard and, therefore, you can still see it is happening in many manufacturing companies.

OpenBOM brings a modern, robust, and flexible system to organize part numbering system and to help companies to define a sequential number for each part and manage multiple revisions separately. It simplifies data entry and allows engineers and everyone else to be on the same page when sharing data and collaborating.

OpenBOM part numbering system is flexible and allows support for the traceability of the same part across multiple revisions. It is also a best practice to manage revisions in complex structures, which is impossible to do with the numbering systems relying on Excel file names and revisions OpenBOM allows you to generate part numbers early in the design process and simplify the business processes.

REGISTER FOR FREE and start your OpenBOM 14-day trial to check how OpenBOM can help you today.

Best, Oleg