Webinar Recording: BOM Types, Which One Is Good For You?

Oleg Shilovitsky
Oleg Shilovitsky
23 January, 2020 | 2 min for reading
Webinar Recording: BOM Types, Which One Is Good For You?

Going back to basics in today’s webinar and talk about the fundamental things – BOM types. Often there are tons of confusion around BOM types – EBOM, MBOM, XBOM, SBOM… you name it. We don’t talk about them today. We will do it later.

Today, we talk about 4 fundamental types of Bill of Materials

1- Single level BOM.

This is the basic and the simplest BOM – list of parts. No structure. Think about the list of components you need to build a product. Usually, the most commonly used because of its natural simplicity. 

2- Multi-level BOM (indented BOM).

This BOM presents structure and parent-child relationships. This one is a complete structure of components – parts and assemblies. It can be two types – quantity-based and instance-based. Quantity based means no part can be present multiple times in the same level. So, an instance is not identified – only quantity. Instance BOM allows to every single part instance to be represented in the BOM

3- Part List.

A flat list with a list of all parts and corresponding quantities. It is a quantity summary.

4- Flattened BOM.

A quantity-based rollup built from a specific top-level BOM. Flattened BOM contains both assemblies and parts, but very much similar to the part list that contains only parts. 

Check the video from the webinar 

And this is a slide deck.

Conclusion.

The information about the product can be presented in various forms. BOM types cover fundamental options – single-level BOM, multi-level BOM, flattened BOM and part list. Knowing these BOM types you can feel very comfortable speaking about different product structures. 

In the next webinar, we will talk about configured BOMs, Resolved BOMs and Views.

Register for OpenBOM user subscription later today 

Best, Oleg @ openbom dot com.

Let’s get to know each other better. If you live in the Greater Boston area, I invite you for a coffee together (coffee is on me). If not nearby, let’s have a virtual coffee session — I will figure out how to send you a real coffee.

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. 

Related Posts

Also on OpenBOM

4 6
11 July, 2025

If you work in manufacturing or procurement, you already know the struggle. You need STEP files for CNC programming, PDF...

10 July, 2025

We are excited to share that OpenBOM now offers a completely revamped integration with QuickBooks, bringing your engineering, inventory, and...

9 July, 2025

A few days ago, I posted an article titled Is your data BOMable?, where I explored the readiness of your...

8 July, 2025

Let’s be honest – keeping track of accurate Bills of Materials (BOMs) is one of the biggest challenges in engineering...

3 July, 2025

Walk into any engineering office today, and you’ll see it immediately: Excel open on someone’s screen. Spreadsheets have been the...

2 July, 2025

Engineers rarely build entirely new products from scratch. Whether designing machinery, electronics, or high-tech projects, most products are evolutions of...

1 July, 2025

At OpenBOM, our vision has always been clear – to create an open and flexible information model, built using modern...

30 June, 2025

At OpenBOM, we know that managing changes is one of the most critical – and often challenging – aspects of...

27 June, 2025

At OpenBOM, we talk to manufacturing companies of all sizes – startups, mid-sized innovators, and established enterprises, and most of...

To the top