Over the past month, I’ve written a lot about architecture, data models, digital threads, xBOM structures, multi-tenancy, ordering, security and the foundations that make OpenBOM work. But today’s article is different. Day 29 is about stepping back and listening to what truly matters: the people who use OpenBOM every day to design, build, communicate and deliver products.
When you read customer stories or reviews, you quickly learn that everyone arrives at OpenBOM from a different starting point. Some come because they’ve outgrown spreadsheets. Some adopt OpenBOM after trying traditional PLM systems that felt too heavy or rigid. Others find us when they start scaling production and realize their engineering BOMs and procurement workflows are no longer manageable by hand.
Despite these different paths, the stories share a common theme: customers want clarity, control, collaboration and a way to reduce the friction that engineering and manufacturing teams face every day.
Today I want to share what I’ve learned by listening. These aren’t abstract personas or hypothetical use cases. These are real teams, real products, and real challenges—told in their own words.
Why Customer Voices Matter
Customer stories on openbom.com/user-stories and G2 reviews on g2.com/products/openbom/reviews have become one of the most reliable ways for us to understand the daily reality of modern manufacturing. Often, customers teach us things we never thought about—and change the way we design OpenBOM.
Across hundreds of reviews and conversations, a few themes repeat:
- Teams struggle with fragmented data
- Spreadsheets break as soon as products grow
- CAD data is disconnected from ordering and inventory
- Collaboration with suppliers is slow and error-prone
- BOMs become inconsistent the moment someone emails a copy
- Everyone wants a single place to trust
- And—most importantly—nobody has time to waste
These themes become the foundation for product improvements and roadmap decisions. But they also create a storyline that reflects the actual value customers experience with OpenBOM.
Let’s dive into a few stories and let the customers speak for themselves.
Abram Scientific — Choosing OpenBOM as the Foundation for Their Product Stack
Richard from Abram Scientific put it clearly. His team discovered OpenBOM during a critical moment in their development cycle. They were designing advanced diagnostic equipment and needed a solution that could unify design, compliance, and manufacturing data.
His description stuck with me:
“OpenBOM doesn’t treat product data as a static archive—it treats it as a living, connected resource.”
What Richard and his team valued most was the seamless CAD integration. They work with both MCAD and ECAD, so having a structured, multi-level BOM created automatically from design tools immediately removed manual steps and reduced errors. There was no more copying from CAD into spreadsheets. No mismatched component lists. No late-night manual reconciliations.
They chose OpenBOM as the foundation for their product development stack because it allowed them to move fast while staying compliant. The story is simple: fewer manual steps, fewer mistakes, better visibility.
Sierra Thermal — A Smooth Transition to Independence
When Sierra Thermal became its own independent entity, they had to rebuild their internal systems from scratch. They needed something lightweight and flexible but also controlled and structured. Their shortlist of requirements was clear: ease of use, cloud access, BOM reusability, strong revision control, and good support.
OpenBOM checked every box.
Their team told us:
“Compared to our previous tools, OpenBOM’s intuitive interface and seamless workflows have dramatically improved our ability to manage BOMs.”
They especially appreciated that they could reuse existing designs more efficiently and speed up quoting cycles. In this case, OpenBOM helped them stabilize their operations at a critical moment of organizational change.
Pyka — Moving from Google Sheets to a Real BOM System
One of my favorite stories comes from Pyka, a company developing autonomous electric aircraft. Garrett, Lead Mechanical Engineer, described their evolution from prototyping to production.
He said something that I think many engineering teams will recognize:
“We were basically trying to build OpenBOM in Google Sheets.”
Pyka had two teams—Engineering and Manufacturing—trying to coordinate on hundreds of assemblies and thousands of parts. They reached a point where spreadsheets simply could not support the complexity. They needed reliable CAD integration, structured BOMs, and a way to keep engineering and manufacturing aligned.
What attracted them was the low barrier to entry. They could import directly from SolidWorks, from spreadsheets, or type data manually. And what they got was a system that worked the way they expected, with reliable updates from CAD and consistent BOM structures.
This story reflects something very common in early-stage hardware companies: a transition from chaotic prototyping to organized manufacturing. OpenBOM helped them cross that bridge.
Vartech Systems — Saving Two Hours a Day
Max from Vartech Systems shared a simple but powerful insight:
“We love that when we change one thing in our BOM, it shows up everywhere the item is used.”
That’s the essence of controlled, connected data. A small change in one place ripples through the entire structure. This eliminates a lot of hidden manual work and prevents mismatches between engineering, purchasing, and manufacturing.
Max walked us through how BOMs flow across their organization: engineering, purchasing, inventory, assembly, QC, and finally shipping. Their process highlighted something obvious but often overlooked: the BOM is the backbone of the entire operation.
And when that backbone is consistent, the entire company moves more efficiently.
TTM Technologies — A Lean, Flexible Way to Handle Legacy and New Products
TTM Technologies needed to manage both legacy products and new designs. Their existing BOM data was scattered across spreadsheets, text files, tribal knowledge, and outdated tools.
Their description of the situation is familiar to many companies:
“It wasn’t working and didn’t scale.”
They needed something lean and flexible. They did not want a heavy PLM system. They wanted something that aligned with how they worked: fast, iterative, connected.
What stood out to them was that OpenBOM let them move directly from prototype to manufacturing. They could generate a BOM, clean it up, and get it to the shop floor immediately—without consultants or long projects.
This is one of OpenBOM’s strengths: the ability to support both structured modernization and rapid iteration.
Tomcar — Global Sharing With Manufacturing Partners
Jonathan from Tomcar summed up his experience with a very straightforward line:
“I absolutely love that OpenBOM lets me share accurate, complete BOMs with vendors, partners, customers, my colleagues in Israel, and many more.”
Tomcar works with global manufacturing partners. Before adopting OpenBOM, they did not have a final, accurate BOM that was easy to share. There was too much tribal knowledge, and partners could not reliably know what to build or what to buy.
OpenBOM gave them a full product definition they could instantly share. They could send clear, consistent BOMs to multiple partners, all from a single source. This eliminated misunderstandings and improved communication.
This is where multi-tenant data sharing really shines: each company has its own account, its own controls, and can securely share only the objects needed.
What G2 Reviews Tell Us
Customer reviews on G2 consistently highlight three themes:
- Ease of Use: Engineers appreciate that OpenBOM feels familiar and works like a spreadsheet but with structure and control.
- CAD Integration: Automatic BOM generation from SolidWorks, Onshape, Fusion and others is repeatedly mentioned as a breakthrough.
- Cross-Company Collaboration: Almost no other tool makes it this easy to share BOMs, catalogs, or item views with suppliers without sending files.
G2 reviews often mention time savings, fewer errors and the value of having a living, always-updated source of product information.
These reviews are honest and direct. They tell us where we are strong and where we need to continue improving.
What All These Voices Have In Common
Across all these stories—Abram Scientific, Sierra Thermal, Pyka, Vartech, TTM Technologies, Tomcar—and across hundreds of G2 reviews, the message is consistent:
People do not want another heavy system.
People do not want more complexity.
People want clarity, structure, reliability and collaboration.
Teams want tools that help them:
- reduce manual work
- improve communication
- connect engineering with procurement
- share data with suppliers
- trust the BOM from design to manufacturing
- grow from prototype to production without replatforming
And this is why listening to customer voices matters so much. These stories guide our roadmap, validate our choices, and remind us that OpenBOM must continue to stay simple, transparent, and practical.
This article sits at the end of the journey for a reason. The previous articles covered architecture, digital thread, multi-tenancy, object references, ordering workflows, catalogs, part numbering and security. But none of these matter unless they solve real problems for real companies.
Customer voices bring everything into focus.
They show how OpenBOM is used in engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and sourcing. They show how teams transition from spreadsheets to structured data, from emails to shared objects, from chaos to organized processes.
Most importantly, they show how people work—and how we can support them better.
Conclusion:
If there is a single lesson from all of these stories, it is this: product development is deeply human. Teams struggle, adapt, improvise, and eventually find structures that help them build better products.
OpenBOM is one of those structures. But its real value is not measured in features. It is measured in how teams use it to work together.
Day 29 is about listening. Listening to challenges, successes and insights. Listening so we can continue improving the platform and supporting the thousands of people using OpenBOM every day.
Tomorrow, we move to Day 30—the final day—where I will reflect on the overall journey and share a forward-looking vision for OpenBOM and the next generation of manufacturing software.
Meantime, REGISTER FOR FREE and check how OpenBOM can help you.
Best, Oleg
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