Compressing a Bill of Material

[JaconHarbour]

OK, here is the situation.
Due to our line of work, our assemblies can have hundreds of parts. Most parts have the same exact description. I have been working slowly on a total conversion from AutoCAD to Solidworks. This is an ongoing project, but one of the first things to do was to tackle the BOM.
However, it has been industry accepted standard to show all like description items on the same BOM line.

For example:

Item No. QTY Unit Description
1 – 6 2 Each Panel
7 2 Pcs Cover Plates
8 – 10 2 Each Truss

I have not found an easy way to do this with Solidworks. I have never encountered this need before in my 8+ years of Solidworks experience. I know by nature, Solidworks will give each solid part it finds in an assembly its own line in the BOM.

Right now, my only option is to have the end user remove unwanted lines, and to modify the Item No. line manually.

While this is not a totally unacceptable practice, I would like to try to have it automated as much as possible.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[NomLaser]

I have worked with large assemblies and have never seen someone structure a BOM like this. Does every part not have a unique part number? Your example looks confusing to say the least. Even when we had multiple parts with the same or similar description, everyone used the part number to identify parts.

 

[smcadman]

I could MAYBE understand IF you wanted all like-items together similar to the way hole-tables can combine like-sizes, but those have individual rows for each part.

Having all like items on the same row sounds confusing to me. I know that doesn't help you out, just my .02 cents.



Flores

 

[JaconHarbour]

DEdddie,

Yes, every part has a unique ID, that is why the example shows that parts 1 thru 6 are panels.

The Iso-view has balloons that point to each part. eg. item 1, item 2, item 3....item 6

But the BOM only shows a single line for items 1 thru 6.

 

[handleman]

So what purpose does the BOM serve? Is it solely so that assembly people can know the name of the part they are assembling?

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[JaconHarbour]

The BOM is there for the installers in the field. The product is not assembled in the plant, only in the field.

This practice came from the board drafting days when a drafter did not want to spend all day writing out a line for each part. Thus, they combined any like description into one line.

I have tried to convince them that we could just use the BOM as provided by solidworks, sometimes that is producing a BOM that is so long, that it cannot be placed upon the drawing.

 

[handleman]

But what is the purpose of the BOM? If it only shows the information above then it is useless. Has no function. Should not be included on the drawing. The only information that can be gleaned from that BOM is

1. Name of the part (no meaning)
2. Qty of the part.

Part qty can be automatically generated and displayed by the balloon itself, allowing the assembler to skip the step of looking up qty in the BOM.

-handleman, CSWP (The new, easy test)

 

[JaconHarbour]

I understand you question. I am fairly new to this company and have not learned all the reasons behind some of the procedures. I have included two images, showing what I am trying to obtain.

The first shows what Solidworks currently produces with it's BOM. The second shows what I am trying to get the BOM to look like.

As of right now, the company policy is that since Solidworks cannot produce the BOM how they wish, they will continue to use older Autocad-based blocks and have the drafters manually fill in the data.


Current:

http://files.engineering.com/getfil...-7987-45e5-a759-d9acb9d0d344&file=Current.jpg

Needed:

http://files.engineering.com/getfil...5-36b4-40fd-b69d-423e7eec6241&file=Needed.jpg

 

[NL8]

You're not going to find anything like that in the standard BOM methods in SW. You'd have to generate an Excel BOM and manually format it the way you want or use a general table and manual populate it and the balloons. Either way you'll be taking away the greatest advantages of the SW BOM in favor of a format that does not work for the tools at hand simply because people can't learn to [/i]look ahead[/i]. Best recommendation would be to take that back to the decision makers and explain to them how much time you'll be wasting doing this the long way instead of the parametric way. I agree with handleman, the current format of your BOM servers no purpose.

...OK I'll stop now.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 4.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

However, it has been industry accepted standard to show all like description items on the same BOM line.

Which industry would that be?

 

[takedownca]

Best recommendation would be to take that back to the decision makers and explain to them how much time you'll be wasting doing this the long way instead of the parametric way.

Good luck. I recently had the aforementioned conversation. It's also the first time I'm working at a company big enough where I'm not also the CAD admin. Unfortunately, I was unable to convince anyone that it was unnecessary to continue the aerospace BOM convention of having additional rows just to list different dash number variants. SW won't do that automatically. I have to manually add rows that can't be saved to the BOM template. I should probably make a separate thread in case someone has already automated the process.

 

[JaconHarbour]

To CorBlimeyLimey: We produce oil field sheet metal equipment.

To takedownca: I agree, in most cases I have worked for small to medium sized companies that I can sit down one-on-one with the owner if needed and explain things.

Now, I am with a company that is in numerous countries and has been around for almost 200 years. So, getting drastic changes here to go through is almost impossible.

 

[NL8]

Show them the wasted dollars from doing it the old way compared to the new way. If it takes X hours to do it their way, and X-3 hours to do it your way, across a multinational corporation, building Y units a year and generating Z drawings. I think you'll find the number add up fast.

Joe Hasik, CSWP/SMTL
SW 09 x64, SP 4.0
Dell T3400
Intel Core2 Quad
Q6700 2.66 GHz
3.93 GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

 

[JaconHarbour]

I have already knocked 40% off the design time as it is, I doubt I can get them to change more for another 1%.

Even if I could prove a money savings advantage. I would then have a BOM that would be so long that it would require multiple sheet to show it.

Extra paper + extra ink + printer wear and tear = a lot of money also.

I just wish we had a merge function in the BOM that works better than the current one.

 

[MechEng2005]

How do you differentiate between two items that are listed on the same line with different item numbers? You have no way of telling part 6 from 7... This seems odd to me.

To me, it sounds like if it were at all possible, it might involve using something like the weldment cutlists to group items. I haven't used SW for about 3 years now, so I can't try to figure out how or if it would work. I doubt it, and even if it did, do you really want to have all your assemblies be weldments? Seems like it's likely to create more problems than it would solve.

Or perhaps an Excel template for the BOM as DekkerDesign said, and then it would have to be manually formatted to the way you want it. However, maybe one of the Excel macro gurus could help with automating that...

-- MechEng2005

 

[EEnd]

At least in2008, on BOM creation there is a section of “Part Configuration Grouping” options. If you can make the parts that need to be grouped as configurations of the same part or assembly, the grouping options might get you what you need.

Eric

 

[JaconHarbour]

Unfortunately, the parts are created by an stand alone automation program which is being programed in Amsterdam. I have no control over the creation of the parts, I am only working on the final display at the last level.

 

[SteveMartin]

My guess is that if you have 6 unique 'panel' parts but have only been showing one combined line on the drawing BOM, you have another BOM in some other program that delineates which panel is which (with part numbers I'd hope). If that's the case, I'd just put a note on the drawing to see that BOM and have no BOM on the drawing. I cannot see how the style your company is using can be of help to the field assemblers/installers. How do they know how to distinguish which of the six unique panels in their kit is panel1, panel2, etc..?

 

[JaconHarbour]

No, we do not. The only BOM we have is what is on each assembly page. I have written a hardware program through API, that allows us to have a final BOM, which list all hardware needed, along with the minimum sheet metal size stock for each part. This BOM the customer, nor the installers ever see.

The installers work by sheets. So Item 1 on sheet 3, will be marked(stamped into the metal) 03-01. So there is no confusion.

 

[NomLaser]

Wow, sounds like a huge headache and a very inefficient system.