Product Data Throughout the Organization
Bills of material (BOMs), routings, work center information, and engineering change management are used throughout an organization. Although the manufacturing facility is the primary user of routings and work centers, and the bill of material was originally intended for engineering purposes, they are now critical inputs to other areas of an organization. Engineering change management is a tool that is used throughout the organization to communicate changes to product data.
Manufacturing engineers use bills of material to develop and communicate manufacturing requirements, and to indicate how and in what order the product should be built. Work centers are defined and manufacturing routings are then developed. To enhance planning and decrease leadtimes, components on a bill of material are attached to a routing operation step to identify where specific material should be issued and consumed in the manufacturing sequence of the product.
Accounting uses bills of material and routings to run a cost roll-up. From the cost roll-up, you can determine the cost of the product and then determine the product price.
If you sell configured items, you use the bills of material that are created for features and options to create an overall bill of material and routing for the final configured item. The engineering change order (ECO) notifies you of changes to product features and options. If significant changes are required, the customer can be notified about any changes to the features and options of the final product.
Material planners, who usually drive planning and inventory control within the company, use bills of material to determine what manufactured and purchased items are required. Routings and bills of material are used to determine when, where, and what quantities are required to produce parts, and what resources and work centers are required to complete the work orders.
When a work order is created, the engineering bill of material becomes the parts list on the work order. The stockroom uses this parts list to pull parts for the work order. Components are issued to the work order so that inventory is relieved.
After the work order and parts list are issued to the manufacturing floor, the product is manufactured or assembled. A bill of material might also be listed on the engineering drawing that is issued with the work order.
Building the product while cross-referencing the bill of material on the drawing and the parts list attached to the work order:
Ensures that the part is manufactured to engineering specifications.
Verifies the accuracy of the bill of material.
The service department uses the parent/component relationships in bills of material to determine what parts must be stocked for warranty and replacement parts.