OpenBOM Roadmap 2021 – Data Network, Intelligence, Inventory, Purchasing, And More…

Hello, 2021. The beginning is the time to reflect on what happened in the past year and look at what is coming next. The year 2020 was like nothing we’ve seen before. If you missed my earlier article, please check it out here. I’m super excited about OpenBOM achievements. Here are a few significant achievements we made in 2020. 

• OpenBOM was growing continuously during the entire 2020 leveraging massive switch of companies to remote work and the need for collaborative tools 
• OpenBOM expanded the profiles of companies using OpenBOM with customers coming from multiple industries – industrial equipment, machine design, high-tech, electronic, medical equipment, food, process, and AEC (architecture and construction). 
• OpenBOM made 10 production releases with more than 100 new features and functions. Among the most notable updates were a completely new user interface, the improved user experience of catalogs, Bill of Materials, calculations, CAD add-ins, and many other functions.  
• We made enhancements to OpenBOM history and revision mechanisms by supporting the Change Request and Approval mechanism. 
• We made significant investments in providing the OpenBOM demo data set, providing documentation, and education resources. We provided a new OpenBOM Online Training Library, a new Onboarding Course, set of educational webinars and videos. 

Now, I’d like to share about what is coming next in OpenBOM in 2021. Although, as you know, the OpenBOM roadmap is very much customer-driven, I’d like to share about what is planning and also to talk about important strategic development, OpenBOM is planning to take in the coming 2021. 

1- Data Networks and Real-Time Intelligent Data Access 

Data is a king and OpenBOM was investing in the development of modern data management technologies from the first days by creating a unique multi-tenant data platform allowing individual users and companies to share data and collaborate in a seamless way by connecting data shared by multiple users and companies. In the coming year, we are planning on providing functions and features improving collaboration, data sharing, real-time data access, and intelligent analytics. Among these features, Team and Company subscriptions will have an advanced function to support user-defined views, OpenBOM will be integrated with online catalogs to support real-time data access. 

2- CAD Add-in For Teams and Companies 

OpenBOM CAD-ins provide unique and unmatched capabilities to extract data from CAD and other engineering systems. In our plans is to take OpenBOM CAD add-ins to the next level and to provide collaborative features allowing customers to use OpenBOM add-in in a coordinated manner by a group of users in Team and Company subscriptions. 

3- Inventory, Production Planning, and Purchasing Intelligence 

We are working on significant improvements and enhancements of OpenBOM production planning and purchasing functions. Production planning will be expanded beyond the “batch planning” process. OpenBOM will provide inventory support for sub-assembly and complex orders allowing the creation of POs for individual components and sub-assemblies. Combined with the new Purchasing Dashboard, these new tools will allow expanding purchasing functions and remove current limits of batch production planning. We are also planning to support work orders in addition to the Purchase Order creation process.  

4- Supported CAD integrations 

As we’re growing in multiple industry segments, we plan to expand the list of supported CAD systems. The list of the system will be finalized and we will be following the requests from customers and the community of our users. 

5- New Functions, UX improvements, and more 

As always, will plan to provide enhancements to existing functionality and to keep improving the OpenBOM user experience. It will include improvements in Import functions, grid editing user experience, change management, and other functions. 

Conclusion

Manufacturing and construction businesses are adopting SaaS technologies these days. At OpenBOM, we are developing a unique set of SaaS technologies to support a variety of engineers, manufacturing, and construction companies. I’m super excited about OpenBOM plans for 2021 and future enhancements of functionality and user experience. It was a very challenging year for all of us. Manufacturing companies are looking at how to become even more resilient to support new business realities of the fast-changing world of the pandemic, finding new opportunities and providing solutions for existing challenges. 

Meantime, you can check what OpenBOM does by registering for FREE and start a 14-days FREE professional trial just by clicking the button. If you already have an OpenBOM account, just click on the “Start Trial” button. No subscription, no annual commitment, and no credit card needed to try it out. 

Best, Oleg @ openbom.com 

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.