What is BOM Management?

BOM management is the capturing, configuring, and managing of all product data that is developed throughout the lifecycle of a product. Effective BOM management is critical to a manufacturer’s success no matter the size or the number of parts in the product.

Your Digital Transformation Starts With BOM Management

Most manufacturers are grappling with speed and agility in the face of growing numbers of product options and variants. Homegrown tools and processes make it very challenging to find and ensure traceability and associativity of the right product information.

By adopting a parts-centric approach to managing their bill of materials, manufacturers can foster collaboration from the point of product conception through manufacturing, device connectivity, and field service.

Benefits of BOM Management

Here are ten ways manufacturers can realize immediate benefits from a digital product definition that provides full connectivity across engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, and service.

Change and Configuration Management

Support a range of BOM structures

Provide specific BOM views for departments, each of which are associated with the others, ensuring traceability between parts (CAD, electrical, mechanical, software, and so on).

Project and Design Collaboration, Governance, and Workflow

Comprehensively manage configurations

Create “closed-loop” lifecycle system consolidation and automatically incorporate the configuration flow from upstream definitions into downstream configured BOMs.

PLM Roadmap 2020: The Backbone for Digital Transformation

Ensure change management and traceability

Products evolve rapidly. Easily manage changes to a product’s definition and ensure your deliverables reflect product development changes across the enterprise.

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Optimize downstream utilization

Ensure data accuracy and configurations of upstream and downstream deliverables to optimize workflows and processes across the organization.

Product Variability Management

Enable collaboration and IP protection

Share relevant, accurate, up-to-date data that can be accessed and used with minimal rework to maximize productivity—all while protecting intellectual property (IP).

Service Process Management

Create BOM-based reports

Enable users to better understand the digital product definition, allowing them to query and find specific information and understand patterns, as well as analyze the products.

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Make BOM transformation a reality

Enable a group to change the original BOM to a view that works for them. Downstream users can plan their BOMs earlier in the process rather than wait for engineering drawings.

PTC’s BOM Management Foundations E-Book

Start Your PLM Foundation the Right Way

Are you still using engineering drawings and spreadsheets as your product definition? It’s time to switch to a part-centric approach. Explore how a part centric BOM can provide a holistic digital product definition, streamline collaboration, reduce complexity and more in this new eBook. Download now to learn how to improve your product management.

Key BOM Management Software Features

Comprehensive out-of-the-box configuration management for a model-based digital thread. Downstream digital content is associative (not copied) with traceable links to manufacturing, service, and more.

  • Visualization: See product configurations in 3D including loading components on demand, perform interference checking, color coded search and visual compare in Creo View, while fully leveraging these viewables in downstream in process plans, work instructions, catalogs, AR, etc.

  • Editing: Create and manage product designs including inline editing, autocomplete search, save-as, import from spreadsheet, and driving BOM built from CAD

  • Compare: Compare product structures including differences in parts, bill of materials, CAD, documents, etc. View differences and explore in 3D

  • Part replacements and supersedes: Define relationships of interchangeability including alternates, substitutes and part obsolescence

  • Part classification: Define attributes that streamline finding parts using graphical navigation or attribute searching. Ensure part standardization through classification driven naming

  • Options and variants: Build configurable product platforms and create configurations and 3D deliverables for design and downstream needs such as MBOM and process plans

  • Part AML/AVL: Tie supplier part information to product design and allow definition of preferred suppliers for commodity parts. Enable part request process for supply chain and engineering collaboration

  • Integration for embedded software: Link software deliverables from SCM tools to BOM to provide a complete product definition including software

  • Transformation: Associative engineering, manufacturing, and service bill of materials views to streamline reconciliation; support for textual and graphical transformation

  • Part types: Define parts definitions that help describe and capture different business needs with varying attributes, lifecycles and access control.

  • Part history: Timeline history; compare information and part structure directly from history table

Customer Stories

Learn how these companies have adopted a parts-centric approach to managing their BOMs in order to drive their digital transformation.

PLM Demo Videos with Polaris

See demonstrations of how Polaris is using product lifecycle management technologies to help drive its digital transformation.

Watch Now

iRobot's Journey to Product Nirvana

To ensure stakeholders were receiving maximum value from bill of materials management, iRobot adopted a quick-win approach to deploy projects in three- to six-month increments.

Hear the Story

Lifetime Products: From Paper to Digital

Discover how Lifetime Products evolved from manual processes to digital traceability and collaboration in a series of short projects.

Watch the Video

Nidec Global Appliance – Producing with Quality

Learn how Nidec was able to improve product quality by taking a parts-centric approach to BOM management.

Learn More

Types of bills of material

Engineering BOM (EBOM)

Enable product design to associatively create the EBOM from up-to-date CAD and PLM data.

Manufacturing BOM (MBOM)

Enable manufacturing teams to associatively create the MBOM from the EBOM and prepare process manufacturing plans and work instructions.

Service BOM (SBOM)

Enable service teams to associatively create the SBOM from the EBOM. Prepare work instructions, manage service parts and information, and establish connected field service.

Learn More About Windchill

Learn More About Windchill

Explore PTC’s Windchill enterprise PLM solution. With its breakthrough PLM capabilities, Windchill enables you to adopt a parts-centric approach to managing your bill of materials with a single source of truth to all product data. Experience true closed-loop lifecycle management from early concept through all iterations, design cycles, and stages until your product is fully released.

Talk to an expert

Give stakeholders throughout your organization quick and easy access to product data. Windchill, PTC’s product lifecycle management solution, helps break down organizational silos leading to:

  • Improved time-to-market
  • Decreased costs
  • Improved product quality
  • More time for innovating

Windchill offers organizations the performance and scale they need to manage large data sets and with subscription pricing, you only pay for what you need. Plus, with easy integration to the ThingWorx IoT platform, data from smart, connected products in the field can be leveraged for a digital twin.

Ready to learn more about what Windchill can do for you? Submit the form and we’ll be in touch!



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