A BOM in context to this article is simply a comprehensive list of the electronic components and parts with material quantities needed to manufacture an end product.
Why is a Bill of Materials important?
Costing:
We often get into discussions with our suppliers about the cost of a particular contract and often we end up asking for a quote to cost-up the entire BOM to save valuable time. The main reason why most people work with a BOM is to keep control of costs on projects. It would be right to therefore say, a BOM is mainly used to calculate product cost and where possible assist in its reduction. It’s a given to renegotiate for a price reduction when using a line-by-line BOM, rather than stating generally that the supplier’s prices are too high. Having an incomplete BOM or unquoted lines allows you to source openly for the best price and most BOM tools created by aggregators will do just this.
Purchasing:
Purchasing had never been efficient when running large engineering projects. However, with the advancement of Big Data, engineering professionals especially from OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), Original Design Manufacturer (ODMs) and EMS (electrical manufacturing services) have been able to save abundances of resources on big projects saving considerable time and money as BOM’s operated by electronic components aggregators helps facilitate the purchase of components without bias. Even though it’s possible to use BOM solutions from component distributors, aggregators like oemsecrets.com give you more transparency.
Supply Chain:
The availability of electronic components has a direct impact on new devices. We often see on the news products like Samsung, PlayStation or Xbox console games have been delayed for release. One key factor could be because of a broken supply chain. BOM tools assists in the management of your supply chain and finances. For example, Bill of material tools can be used to capture lead times for materials and as a result procurement and project managers will know when they must be purchase certain components to manufacture products on time.
Reduce Waste and gain inventory control:
As mentioned above, BOM tools often communicate the design of the product to be manufactured and as a result design teams will tend to follow the list to the letter. This will reduce any waste and more often help deliver a profitable product to market if all aspects remain constant.
What are the common types of Bill of Materials?
- Manufacturing Bill of Materials: often define a structured list of all items required to make a finished product and will cover all individual parts of a build.
- Engineering Bill of Materials: often define assembly parts and is commonly referred to as EBOM, which can resonate from functional technical drawings as they’re designed mainly by engineers.
- Sales Bill of Materials: defines a product in a sales stage and more often than not an SBOM will be showing details prior to assembly.
How has Oemsecrets improved on already existing BOM management tools in the market?
Before I mention any products I have used for my engineering projects, I make sure it has met some of my key assessment criteria of BOM management tools which included: ease of use, usefulness to the electronics industry, and functionality.
How did oemsecrets.com standout.
- The interface was easy to the eye and simple to use,
- Their interface only showed important filters which did not create distraction and confusion like other platforms. This platform doesn’t offer too many unnecessary or unneeded data fields to filter out results with which makes the buying experience a lot easier,
- This tool allows buyers to filter their BOM with the best price with MOQ,
- It has another option of filtering with Best Match with stock,
- This is probably a game changer for me, I have seen it before but not as these guys have implemented it, which was to filter results with my preferred distributors on an item level within the same screen. It felt like a proper e-commerce website,
- Talking of ecommerce websites, you’re able to purchase products quickly with distributors and checkout, as you can add multiple items straight to cart with ease and in ‘one click’.
Try it for yourself here: https://bomtool.oemsecrets.com/login
Summary
Bill of Materials define the design of a finished product and if you can’t find the part or the electronic component you are searching for has zero stock or is obsolete, you’re able to view the lead time for better project management.
Article researched and published by: Sensors technology writer Jamin Uki