Solidworks Bills of Materials

[JASON8102]

How many people out there use configured bills of material in Solidworks with assemblies containing 10 parts or more? What's people's opinion of using configured bills of material in Solidworks?



Jason Schultz
Mechanical Engineer
Yaskawa Electric America
"It's got to be 5pm somewhere!"

 

[MadMango]

I've used BOM for assemblys with 10 or more parts AND 10 or more configurations.

As for my thoughts, it is nice to have on a drawing for prototyping, but if you are in a production environment, its best to have all your data in one place (your ERP/MRP system, etc) and leave the BOM off the drawing completly.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

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[Nella95]

...And if you're in a primarily 'assembly' environment it isn't a bad idea to have the BOM on your drawing.

 

[JASON8102]

We don't manufacture here we have vendors make our enclosures for us. All prints require a BOM in engineering here. In my opinion the Config. BOMS work ok for something small, but when you get into the larger assemblies and variations 1.) It takes up a lot of space on a drawing sheet, 2.) They are combersome to use, 3.) I've seen them "blow up" when an ECN occurs and you need to delete or add more parts, ect....

Jason Schultz
Mechanical Engineer
Yaskawa Electric America
"It's got to be 5pm somewhere!"

 

[rgrayclamps]

I stay far away from configurations. I do not want a part or an assembly to tangle with another part or assembly. I do use configurations in Toolbox though.

Best regards,

Alex

 

[ctopher]

For tooling/fixture drawings I add the BOM on the drawing.
For product drawings it's separate.

Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Configs are one of the most useful functions of SW. To not use them is akin to drinking beer from a shot glass.

 

[JASON8102]

Don't get me wrong I use configurations of parts and some simple assemblies. The "physical" aspects of configurations is great in SW. But the Configured BOM part, I find just becomes a headache to maintain.

Jason Schultz
Mechanical Engineer
Yaskawa Electric America
"It's got to be 5pm somewhere!"

 

[gwubs]

We use BOMs on assembly drawings, and never use configs in an assembly that would alter a bill. Parts may be shown in different locations, but they are always there in all configs. Not looking to start a debate on configurations, just answering the initial question in the thread.

 

[JASON8102]

GWUBS- I agree. Here's what someone at work wants to do. We design enclosures. These enclosures might have different doors, some get different rainshields, different amounts of fans, ect. Even different paint colors (so he wants to make dummy models of the paint so they pop up in the bill of material as well). If your assembly is set up as a configuration you could use the SW Configured BOM deal. Then you have this huge BOM on the drawing calling out the different variations and different qty's. In my experience these things just don't work......they do at the start, but as soon as an ECO comes out to change types or amounts of things then item numbers start changing and I feel you spend more time on the BOM then you did on the original ECO to change something.

Jason Schultz
Mechanical Engineer
Yaskawa Electric America
"It's got to be 5pm somewhere!"

 

[Updraft]

Jason,

Check out SWX help for "Defining Custom Table or BOM Rows" and "Virtual Components" (for SWX2010). This might be something useful regarding paint in your BOMs. There is certainly no need to make a separate part for paint.

- - -Updraft

 

[JASON8102]

Updraft- Totally agree on the paint. I'm one that is saying just use an excel sheet in the drawing to call these variations out....add and change using that.

Jason Schultz
Mechanical Engineer
Yaskawa Electric America
"It's got to be 5pm somewhere!"

 

[macduff]

We export our BOM's from the SW assemblies as a excel spreadsheet, clean it up as required, save as a tab delimited file, then import to our ERP. From there we add our comsumables, grease, tape, loctite etc...

Colin Fitzpatrick (aka Macduff)
Mechanical Designer
Solidworks 2009 SP 4.1
Dell 490 XP Pro SP 2
Xeon CPU 3.00 GHz 3.00 GB of RAM
nVida Quadro FX 3450 512 MB
3D Connexion-SpaceExplorer

 

[MadMango]

We use blank parts to represent items such as epoxy, thermal grease, etc. in our assemblies so they appear in the BOM. These blank parts are saved to the Vault so they can be reused.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?