# BOM Management

## Key Features

- Create Bill of Materials
- Context
- Display Item Structure
- Copy Bill of Materials
- Compare BOMs

### Create Bill of Materials

All assemblies, parts and even the product itself need to be created as items in the Item Management. To create a BOM, all items (products, assembly, items) are related to each other in a hierarchical order - building a single-level parent/child relation. By structuring all assemblies and items used in a product in hierarchical order a multi-levle Bill of Material is created. In this BOM all parts, assemblies, structure in the BOM, count as a BOM position.

In addition to the information defined for the item in the Item Management, each BOM position contains additional information on this specific BOM.

Type

The type of the BOM position specifies whether the BOM position is an item position (type -) or a text position (type T). It is used for describing a BOM position more detailed. The type Item is the default type and entered automatically. Text can be assigned to any type of BOM position and is assigned by referencing a text instance.

Information on the Text Type can be found in the Text Management.

Quantity/Units

Unless otherwise defined, the quantity for a BOM position is set to 1 by default and the unit depends on the entry in the Unit field of the General tab.

For each item that has been added to the BOM, a specific quantity and unit can be defined for the BOM position. The unit can be changed to those units that have been defined for this item in the item master. Depending on the chosen unit, the quantity will be updated according to the conversion factor that has been defined for this item in the item master.

Item | Unit(s) Item Master | Conversion Factor Item Master | Quantity BOM | Unit BOM
ART-1 | Stk / kg | 1 Stk = 0,02 kg | 5 | Stk
ART-1 | -"- | -"- | 0,10 | kg

Parallel to the field "Quantity BOM" there's a "hidden" field "Quantity" in the BOM record. The "Quantity" field represents the standardized quantity with respect to the unit defined at the item version. The system automatically calculates the quantity according to the unit conversion defined at the item master. The quantity is evaluated in order to calculate the quantity BOM overview.

The unit changes in the BOM structure will not change the general unit settings for the item.

Further information about the units and the unit conversion can be found in the Item Management

Context

The context functionality allows to view a bill of materials from different point of context views, thus excluding BOM positions which are not necessary in a specific context. For instance, a detailed BOM displaying the whole structure including every single screw will be of no interest for a sales representative. Whereas this is a vital information for the manufacturing department. The context is assigned to each BOM position individually in the Item mask. If no context is provided, the position is considered as "context independent" and displayed independent of the selected context view. Assigning the context is done in a matrix-like structure. All contexts available in the system are displayed for all BOM positions and can be selected individually. The item is then only displayed for selected contexts. For contexts that are not selected, the item is not displayed in the respective context view.

To display the context in the Bill of Materials, click View > Filter > Context ... > Show context flags in lists.

Each BOM position can have up to 255 contexts.

BOM Position | Context 1 | Context 2 | Context 3 | Context 4 | ... max. Context 255 | Context View | Item shown in view (yes/no)
ART-1 | X |  | X |  |  | Context 2 | no
ART-2 | X | X |  | X | X | Context 2 | yes
ART-3 |  | X | X |  |  | Context 2 | yes
ART-4 |  |  | X | X |  | Context 2 | no
ART-5 | X | X |  |  | X | Context 2 | yes

The contexts available in Agile e6 can be customer-specific defined. Only users with administrator rights are able to create new contexts (System > Contexts)

### Display Item Structure

Bill of Materials can either be displayed single level or multi-level. While the single-level BOM is a simple list of items, the multilevel display shows the items of the BOM in hierarchical order. Multi-level BOMs can either be viewed in a list or the browser.

List Form

In the context menu, select Structure > Multilevel> List to show the fully exploded structure. The items are ordered hierarchically. All components used in an assembly (item) are dissociated into their individual parts, recursively through all hierarchy levels.

Browser

In the browser, hierarchy levels can be expanded or collapsed to display part of the BOM or the complete structure. In the structure window of the Internal Browser all the items that are in the Item List are listed. When you select an item in the Structure window, the Data window shows the associated data. You may choose between BALM, where-used, documents and projects. The records may not be modified directly in the Structure Browser, but it is possible to edit the records in the Data window when displayed as forms.

### Copy Bill of Materials

In addition to a simple copy, BALM Management offers a number of more complex copy functions:

- Copy with structure
- Copy with Path to New Item No.
- Copy with Path to new Version

Copy with Structure

Copy with Structure copies an item with its entire record. The item copied retains in all respects the relations that the original item had.

Copy with Path to New Item Number

Copy with Path copies an item (point of change) with its path. The path is based on the multilevel where-used data.

Introduction

Copy with Path is special in that all items up to the reference point are copied in a single action. The reference point is selected from the Where-Used List of the item. The path need not, therefore, reach all the way up to the (end) product--the endpoint of the where-used list--but can end in some intermediate subassembly.

Copy with Path results in a number of new items:

- The item selected for the copy (point of change): A to X
- The product or subassembly in which the new item is to be used (reference point): C to Z
- All components lying in between: B to Y

With Copy with Path, only the new items are replaced in the changed components BOMs. All other components are taken unchanged from the BOM of the original item.

Copy with Path to New Version

Copy to a New Version operates exactly like Copy to a New Number except that no new numbers are created, only new versions of the selected item.

- A to A1
- B to B1
- C to C1

This function can only be used when the status of all items effected by the copy is In Change.

### Compare BOMs

In a BOM Comparison the items of two BOMs are held up against one another. The display makes differences in the positions visible as follows:

- If different items are listed under a position, the differences are shown in full.
- If a position exists in only one of the BOMs, the position opposite it in the other BOM is shown as empty.