OpenBOM Comes to Aras Marketplace: Bridging Distributed Engineering Workflows and Enterprise PLM

Modern product development no longer happens inside a single company, a single department, or a single system.

Products are designed, sourced, reviewed, changed, and manufactured across networks of suppliers, contractors, contract manufacturers, subsidiaries, engineering service providers, and specialized internal teams. Some of this work happens inside the enterprise. A lot of it happens outside the formal boundaries of enterprise PLM.

This creates a familiar challenge for manufacturers. Engineering teams need speed and flexibility. External collaborators need a practical way to work with CAD files, Items, BOMs, product structures, revisions, changes, supplier information, and procurement data. At the same time, enterprise manufacturers still need formal governance, lifecycle control, configuration management, traceability, and digital thread continuity.

This is why we are excited to announce that the OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator is now available on the Aras Marketplace.

The Aras Innovator integration connects OpenBOM’s cloud-native collaborative engineering workspace with Aras Innovator as the formal enterprise PLM backbone. It gives manufacturers a practical way to collect, organize, review, and prepare product data in OpenBOM, and then publish validated product information into Aras Innovator using configurable mappings and secure REST API communication.

“Product data today is created and modified across many organizational boundaries, including suppliers, contractors, subsidiaries, and distributed engineering teams. Enterprise PLM systems provide critical governance, lifecycle control, and traceability, but many teams need a flexible digital engineering workspace before data is ready for formal PLM processes. The OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator creates this bridge. It allows teams to collaborate in OpenBOM and then publish structured product data into Aras Innovator, helping manufacturers connect distributed engineering work with enterprise PLM governance.”

— Oleg Shilovitsky, CEO and co-founder, OpenBOM

Why Distributed Engineering Needs a Better Connection to Enterprise PLM

For many companies, the gap between distributed engineering work and enterprise PLM governance is still handled by spreadsheets, email attachments, file transfers, manual exports, and repeated data entry.

Suppliers send spreadsheets. Contractors send CAD files. Engineering teams exchange PDF drawings. Contract manufacturers ask for procurement packages. Subsidiaries maintain their own engineering structures. Internal teams prepare BOMs in different formats. Eventually, someone needs to bring this information into the enterprise PLM system.

This is where mistakes happen.

The problem is not that enterprise PLM is unnecessary. Quite the opposite. Enterprise PLM provides the governance, lifecycle control, configuration management, and traceability companies need to manage complex products. The problem is that not every contributor, supplier, contractor, division, or engineering group can work directly inside the enterprise PLM environment from the beginning of the process.

Manufacturers need a flexible digital engineering layer before product data is ready for formal lifecycle control. OpenBOM provides this layer.

With OpenBOM, distributed teams can collaborate around CAD files, Items, BOMs, product structures, revisions, changes, supplier information, purchasing data, and related product context. Once the information is reviewed and ready, it can be transferred into Aras Innovator for formal governance, lifecycle control, configuration management, and digital thread traceability.

A Shared Vision of Openness

One of the reasons this Aras Innovator integration is significant is that both OpenBOM and Aras share a strong vision around openness, flexibility, and connected product data.

Aras Innovator is known for its open architecture, flexible data modeling, and enterprise-scale PLM platform. OpenBOM was built as a cloud-native product data platform with an open API, flexible data model, and collaborative workspace for engineering and manufacturing teams.

This combination is powerful because integration is not just about moving data from one system to another. Integration requires systems that can adapt to different data models, different engineering workflows, different organizational structures, and different levels of process maturity.

Every company has its own way of defining Items, BOMs, revisions, CAD files, documents, supplier information, lifecycle states, and release processes. A rigid integration model rarely works well in this environment. What is needed is a configurable approach that can map data between systems and support real-world workflows.

That is exactly what the OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator is designed to support.

Flexible Data Modeling Makes Connectivity Easier

OpenBOM’s flexible data model allows teams to capture product information in a way that reflects how they actually work. Teams can manage multi-level BOMs, Items, CAD files, derivatives, images, vendor information, procurement data, and related product context.

This is especially important when working with distributed teams.

A supplier may provide a BOM in one structure. An internal engineering team may work with another structure. A contract manufacturer may need additional purchasing or manufacturing information. A division or subsidiary may use different naming conventions, property definitions, or CAD tools.

OpenBOM helps normalize and organize this information before it is transferred downstream.

The Aras Innovator integration uses configurable mappings to connect OpenBOM properties and structures with Aras Innovator entities and attributes. This gives companies control over how product information is transferred, transformed, and published into the enterprise PLM environment.

The result is a more practical and repeatable way to connect agile engineering collaboration with formal enterprise PLM governance.

Open APIs and Data Mapping for Aras Innovator

At the core of the integration is a simple but important idea: product data should move through open and configurable interfaces.

The OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator uses secure REST API communication to transfer structured product information from OpenBOM into Aras Innovator. This can include Items, BOMs, CAD files, derivatives, images, and related product information.

The mapping approach is configurable, which means companies can define how OpenBOM data corresponds to Aras Innovator entities and attributes. This is critical because enterprise PLM environments are rarely identical. Companies customize their data models, workflows, lifecycle states, item definitions, document structures, and configuration rules.

Instead of forcing a single fixed integration pattern, OpenBOM provides a flexible foundation that can support different implementation scenarios.

This makes the integration useful for multiple use cases, including supplier collaboration, contractor engineering work, contract manufacturing, divisional engineering, subsidiary onboarding, and digital engineering front-end workflows.

OpenBOM as a Digital Engineering Front End for Aras Innovator

Engineering teams should not need to think about integration as a separate technical process. They need a practical workflow that fits naturally into the way they already manage product data.

In OpenBOM, users can create and manage product information, organize BOMs, review structures, work with files and derivatives, collaborate with internal and external users, and prepare data for transfer. The integration experience is designed to support this flow directly from the OpenBOM environment.

In this model, OpenBOM becomes a digital engineering front end for Aras Innovator. Aras remains the enterprise PLM backbone for governance, lifecycle control, compliance, and traceability. OpenBOM provides the flexible collaboration layer where distributed product data work can happen before formal PLM processes begin.

Together, OpenBOM and Aras Innovator support a two-layer product data architecture: OpenBOM provides the collaborative engineering workspace for agile product data work, while Aras Innovator provides the formal PLM backbone for governance and lifecycle control.

Connecting Suppliers, Contractors, Divisions, and Subsidiaries

The OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator supports several important collaboration scenarios.

Manufacturers increasingly rely on external partners to design, source, build, and support products. Suppliers, contractors, engineering service providers, and contract manufacturers often participate deeply in product development while operating outside the OEM’s enterprise PLM environment. OpenBOM provides a cloud-native workspace where these teams can collaborate around CAD files, BOMs, Items, product structures, supplier information, and procurement packages. Once the product information is reviewed and prepared, the integration allows it to flow into Aras Innovator for formal lifecycle control.

Large manufacturing organizations also operate across multiple divisions, subsidiaries, acquired companies, regional engineering groups, and specialized product teams. These groups may use different CAD systems, data practices, and engineering workflows, yet corporate PLM must ultimately provide governance and traceability across all of them. OpenBOM can serve as a flexible engineering collaboration layer for these distributed teams, allowing them to work on product structures, BOMs, CAD files, revisions, and changes without requiring every group to operate directly within the enterprise PLM system from day one. When product data is ready for formal configuration management and lifecycle control, the integration enables it to be published into Aras Innovator in a controlled, repeatable process.

Watch the First Video

We are sharing the first video demonstrating the OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator.

The video shows the initial workflow of preparing product data in OpenBOM and transferring it into Aras Innovator. It demonstrates how OpenBOM can be used to organize structured product information and publish it into the enterprise PLM environment using the integration.

This is the first step in a broader integration roadmap.

What Comes Next

The availability of OpenBOM on the Aras Marketplace is an important milestone, but it is only the beginning.

We are continuing to develop additional capabilities to support more advanced data mappings, broader workflow scenarios, deeper configuration options, and expanded support for customer-specific integration requirements.

We are also researching an embedded version of the OpenBOM Workspace inside the Aras user interface to make the experience even more seamless. The goal is to allow users to access OpenBOM’s collaborative product data workspace directly from the Aras environment, reducing context switching and creating a more integrated experience between distributed engineering collaboration and enterprise PLM governance.

Our goal is to make it easier for manufacturers to connect distributed engineering collaboration with enterprise PLM governance without forcing every team, supplier, contractor, or subsidiary into a single rigid process from day one.

We believe the future of PLM is connected, open, flexible, and collaborative. Product data will continue to be created across many organizational boundaries. The systems that manage this data must be able to connect people, processes, and product structures across those boundaries.

The OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator is a step in that direction.

If you are using Aras Innovator and looking for a practical way to connect suppliers, contractors, contract manufacturers, divisions, subsidiaries, or distributed engineering teams into your product data workflows, we would be happy to talk.

Visit the OpenBOM Integration with Aras Innovator listing on the Aras Marketplace, watch the first video, and contact us to discuss your use case.

REGISTER FOR FREE to learn how OpenBOM can help.

Best, Oleg