BOM or Bills of Material is a document that lists assemblies and raw materials required for production. There are multiple types of BOMs. Here is a list of BOMs that are extremely important for the industry. Manufacturers use BOM as a cost reduction tool to identify opportunities in lowering the manufacturing cost of a product.
- Manufacturing Bill of Materials
The first one on this list is the manufacturing BOM. It is needed when a business has to show every single part and assembly required to manufacture a finished product. It also includes those parts that are needed for processing before being put into the assembly.
- Engineering Bill of Materials
The Engineering Bill of material is created during product design and is made primarily through the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) or Computer-Aided design (CAD) tools. In this document, you will find all the parts, subassemblies, components and assemblies of the product, which is designed by the engineering team. Manufacturers look at BOM for cost reduction. They look at all the components mentioned here and find the best way to schedule their procurement so they can negotiate the best price for the components.
- Service Bill of Materials
The service BOM includes the name of all the installation steps, parts and repair instructions that technicians use when they install or service a product on-site.
- Sales Bill of Materials
The sales BOM lists the details of the finished product, both before its assembly and during the sale phase. Here you will find the finished product and the components listed separately for easy readability.
- Assembly Bill of Materials
It is almost like the sales BOM, but with a notable difference. Unlike the sales BOM, in assembly BOM only the finished product appears. The assembly BOM can be a single level or even multiple levels.
- Production Bill of Materials
This document lists the components and subassemblies of the main product along with their prices, quantities, associated units of measure and descriptions.
- Template Bill of Materials
The template BOM can be used in multiple ways, either as sales or production BOMs. In this BOM, the main item is displayed at the top and the components are listed below.
- Configurable Bill of Materials
In a configurable BOM, all the components required to design and manufacture an item based on the requirements of a customer are listed.
- Single-level Bill of Materials
The single-level BOM is mainly used for those items which do not require a complex manufacturing process and do not have a subassembly. Such a document contains all the parts used to create a product in an order.
- Multilevel Bill of Materials
Compared to the single-level BOM, the multilevel BOM is used for those products which require complex manufacturing processes and have subassemblies.
To lower the price of a finished product, manufacturers look at BOM for cost reduction opportunities. This document gives them an idea of the components needed to manufacture a product. They can procure the components efficiently to avoid wastage and schedule their procurement in a way that allows them to negotiate a good price from the vendors.