HEADS UP: Purchasing and Inventory Enhancements

Over the course of last year, we received many comments and feedback from our demanding improvements in the OpenBOM design to purchase process. Current OpenBOM functionality to support design to purchase process allowing to streamline the production planning and procurement process for engineering prototyping team and small manufacturing company is a great help and allows to plan production batches and control inventory level via Quantity on Hands in catalogs. Read what our customers saying about it online in OpenBOM user stories and G2 reviews. 

However, our customers want more functionality related to production planning. I’m super excited to give you a first early preview of the OpenBOM production planning process support, which includes enhancements for functionality related to Orders, Purchase Orders, and Inventory control. The following image gives you some idea about what we are planning to do. 

Here is a very early brief description of enhancements we will be delivering in the next few releases 

1- Order creation from the catalog 

Current Order (BOM) functionality is available for any BOM, which makes planning functions useful for overall production planning and purchasing. However, we found that a use case to order components or sub-assemblies can be also very useful and helpful in many scenarios when components and assemblies are ordered earlier for long lead and special items. So, a new Create Order Function soon will be available from the OpenBOM catalog. 

2- Quantity on Hands automatic increments 

Together with the ability to order Parts and Assemblies from the catalog, we will improve the Quantity on Hands recalculation mechanism, which previously was only decrementing consumed items. So, new functionality to increase quantity on Hands will be added and it will work with releasing Orders and also with receiving POs. 

3- Purchase order status and receive function. 

The purchase order will be enhanced with the Status, which will allow clarifying the event of PO receiving (requirements came from many-many users). The PO status will be visible and in the future will be integrated with scanning functionality. 

4- Lifting limitations of simultaneous open orders 

Another limitation will be lifted. Very soon you will be able to create multiple open orders from the same assembly (BOM) in OpenBOM. It will allow more flexibility in planning. 

5- Dashboard enhancements 

Last, but not least- we are going to improve purchasing dashboards – Orders and Purchase Orders. As such we are going to add the “number of units” and “Order Status”  to the Orders Dashboard – long-requested enhancements. Also, we are going to add PO status to Purchase Order Dashboards. 

What is my conclusion? 

I’m very much looking forward to these enhancements based on multiple interactions with our customers and their feedback. Enhancements of purchasing functions will create more robust planning capabilities for OpenBOM users. 

Interested to discuss purchasing enhancements and to have early visibility and preview of functions? Please reach out to support at openbom dot come -we would be happy to schedule a web meeting to discuss. 

Read more about what customers do with OpenBOM here. Or register for free to experience OpenBOM by yourself.

Best, Oleg

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my Beyond PLM blog and PLM Book website. Read OpenBOM customer reviews on G2 Crowd to learn what customers are saying about OpenBOM.