Mastering Bill of Materials Creation in Manufacturing

In the Bill of Materials module, you can create just about any kind of bill of materials for a number of manufacturing job types. It’s basically a list of parts, ingredients, and other raw goods that go into making a finished product. You can use a bill of materials for subassemblies and production stages, in addition to simpler manufacturing jobs.

Let’s get right into it.

Creating a Bill of Materials

Click the New button up top to create a new bill of materials. There are five types of jobs a bill of materials can be used for:

• Manufacture
• Repair
• Disassemble
• Maintenance
• Service

After you’ve chosen a type of bill of materials, add a number and description for it. You can even include a URL for the part, if you like. Below that is an Auto Create scale where you can drag an arrow to one of five options:

• Never: Never automatically generate a manufacture order for this bill of materials.
• Short Quantity: Automatically generate a manufacture order for short items.
• Order Quantity: Automatically generate a manufacture order for order items that are short.
• Always Create: Automatically generate a manufacture order for all items used in the bill of materials to replenish them.
• Build To Order: Automatically generate a manufacture order that must be picked by the parent order.

Auto Creating a Bill of Materials

Click the green plus sign below the Auto Create scale to add an item to the bill of materials. There are five types of items you can choose from:

• Raw Good: Items that will be consumed in the course of finishing a work order.
• Repair: Items that won’t be consumed in the course of finishing a work order.
• Finished Good: The final product resulting from a completed work order.
• Note: Instructions and notes that are not directly connected to individual parts.
• Batch Add: Multiple raw goods and finished goods are added to a work order at the same time.

Once everything is added, you can modify their quantities, units of measure, and other aspects of them. Then just click the save button and the new bill of materials will appear in the Search panel.

Duplicating a Bill of Materials

You can create a copy of any bill of materials by simply clicking the Duplicate button up top. This is a handy tool because it allows you to save time by creating another set of instructions for another product that is just like the one you already have, but you can customize it in different ways to meet different needs.

Next week we’ll talk about the other module in the Manufacturing module group, the Manufacture Order module.