Thanks for reading and commenting on this blog. In this installment, we will explore three important areas of Product Data Management (PDM) – Where Used, Contains and Bill of Materials (BOM).
Where Used?
Whenever a change is being made to a part, it is important to know all the assemblies that currently use this part. A change made to a part may make sense in one assembly, but cause a form, fit or function problem in another assembly. Prior to PDM, the task of finding the relationships between a part and the 1 to 100 assemblies that may rely on this part was difficult and time-consuming. With PDM, this task is reduced to clicking on the Where Used tab for any part and instantly viewing the list of affected assemblies. This can be accomplished by the non-CAD user, as it does not require opening the parts or assemblies in SolidWorks.
Contains
Another important task is to get a complete list of parts that are contained in an assembly. This is the reverse of the Where Used in that you find the assembly first and then click on the Contains tab to quickly get a list of all the parts that make up that particular assembly. You can then Browse to any given part in that assembly to see and use the Where Used functionality above to see what other assemblies are using that part.
Bill of Materials
Closely related to the Contains tab, which provides a quick snap shot of the parts in an assembly, is the more complete and flexible Bill of Material or BOM view. In this view you also get a list of the parts in a given assembly, but with more flexibility and control over the information displayed. SolidWorks Enterprise PDM will read in BOM information from SolidWorks (and other supported CAD packages) either based on the file structure of the assembly or by directly reading the customized Drawing or Assembly BOM.
The BOM information can be viewed in different ways by various users and departments. For example, the BOM may be viewed Indented (Nested), Parts Only and Top Level. Users may have different column information displayed from all the information contained in the PDM Vault. Columns may be sorted to re-order the information and two different BOM’s can be compared. This comparison features allows users to understand what has changed between two different versions of an assembly by seeing the additions, deletions and changed quantities in BOM format.
The BOM information can also be edited within PDM and then saved out to an external file such as ASCII text format, Excel or XML, where the BOM can be used by downstream applications including PLM and ERP. This can greatly reduce manual data entry and improve accuracy of As Purchased and As Manufacturing bills of material.
In order to share BOM information throughout the organization, the BOM can be sent through a pre-defined process, called a workflow, which will automatically route the BOM to other users within the company for comments, suggestions and final approval. This can be a great way to communicate Engineering information to the rest of the company including Purchasing, Quality Assurance, Sales, Marketing and Manufacturing.
Conclusion
Understanding and finding the relationships between parts and assemblies can be accomplished very easily, simply by having files in the PDM Vault using the Where Used and Contains tabs. Viewing, editing and sharing detailed Bill of Material information can be accomplished using PDM and does not rely on each user having access to the native CAD package which opens up the information to more people and more departments, improving overall productivity and communication.
Stay tuned for the next issue when we talk about the built-in time machine included with SolidWorks Enterprise PDM!
Hello Rich, Great summary. What is unclear is difference between "contains" and "BOM". What users can see in BOM compared to contains? Is it the same information? Is it multi-level? Also, pictures will be helpful.
Thanks. Oleg
Posted by: Oleg Shilovitsky | February 24, 2009 at 07:00 AM
Hi Oleg - thanks for the comment. There is overlap between Contains and BOM Tabs. In general, the BOM tab is a richer, more customizable environment. You can create multiple BOM views for different users or groups in the BOM tab, edit the BOM by adding position numbers, do a filtered search, compare multiple BOM's and more. So in summary, Contains is a good quick view of an assembly with related files, but the Bill of Materials tab is a much more complete and robust interface for viewing (MultiLevel, Parts Only or Top), editing and even routing BOM's. With respect to pictures, I agree, that would be good to include in future Blogs and as soon as I figure out how, I will :)
Posted by: Rich Allen | February 25, 2009 at 05:40 PM