BILL OF MATERIALS QUESTION- for assemblies w/ sub-assemblies

[cbell1007]

I design custom airplane seats using Inventor 2012. I usually create my bill of materials in Excel and then paste into an inventor .idw because i can adjust the table easily that way, but it is a lot of extra work that I dont exactly have time for. I am familiar with generating custom tables for materials, volumes, percentages, etc. But what I want to know is this:

My (1) seat assembly is comprised of 6 sub-assemblies(at a minimum)= bottom cushion, back, 2 arms, headrest and a legrest; and sometimes the seat frame.

When I select the whole seat assembly in the drawing to generate a parts table, I get 6 empty fields next to the 6 assembly icons.

So, here's the questions i'm trying to ask: Is it possible to generate one master bill of materials for the 1 seat assembly that is comprised of (x) amount of sub-assemblies?

 

[mflayler]

Yes, you have add this data to the iProperties of the Inventor files. Adding the data here will make it so that wherever they are placed whenever you place them, they are reading the same data over and over again from the internally saved metadata of the modeling file. Now the empty fields you are seeing are likely because the data for the subassemblies are blank. If you are filling out the components of the subassemblies properly you have a couple options...

1. You can choose to make the Subassembly Phantom which will promote the sub component up in the tree one level

2. You can go to your BOM Editor and choose the View Properties button. This gets a little lengthy so look at a video and blog post I have here...

http://blogs.rand.com/manufacturing/2010/06/inventor-tips-and-tricks-expanded-structured-boms.html

 

[cbell1007]

Thank you for such a helpful response. But the problem i'm having is one of my rows is populating the word "varies," even after i made sure the properties for the components where all the same. Also, this is happening in my .idw when I create the parts list, but changed my volume column properties to be a sum of the values. In each case the problem is with the mirrored parts.

 

[cbell1007]

oh yea, I was also wondering if B.O.M.'s for 3 different seats can be combined to be placed in one drawing package. I currently have the bill of materialS broken down per the 3 seat styles, but I need one master B.O.M.

 

[mflayler]

It might be better for you to post on the Autodesk Inventor forums then, they are more open to screen images and attachments. I won't have time to visit your issue until at least Friday in more detail so you may get a response there before I can circle back. There appears to be something different or it wouldn't add the varies.

http://forums.autodesk.com/

To your other question, this comes in how you originally setup your design. You could use the iAssemblies functionality to create a Master Table BOM of your components. Otherwise the G.A.P. is to create separate drawing packages for each variation.