If you are just planning to kickstart a manufacturing business where you are going to deal with a number of materials (BOM) every day, you need a professional bill of materials template that will ease your recordkeeping operation.
Types of Bill of materials
BOM is generated not only for the manufacturing segment but applied for any industry that involves transactions of goods. Even a clothing business owner will require a BOM to handle the operations and plan for the upcoming months. Now, it is clear that we have different types of BOMs.
- Single level BOM template – Every component of the design is associated with just one subassembly and the mess in your bill is cleared. This is widely used to create simple formats.
- Manufacturing BOM – Let’s assume that an engineering company produces a product that has 50+ parts sourced from multiple vendors. How is it possible to finalize the expenses and fix the final price? You can do it only with this one as it tells you where you have spent extra and how you can control the same.
- Equipment BOM – This is a specific format where you create a list in specific to that equipment. In order to create a printable at the equipment level, it is just sufficient to make note of products and tools used to create the final product. The number of human resources used to create this BOM is also limited.
An example of these design types is listed below.
What should a bill of material contain?
While BO material design varies depending on the purpose and industry, a basic one should contain product name, component name, component id/ number, quantity, vendor, unit cost and net amount. You can add a separate remark section if you will need it for future references.
If you are creating one specific to the components used to design the final product, your BOM template should include order quantity, serial #, part number, remarks/ description/ specification, type, and package. You should also mention the software used to make it such as word processing software or excel etc.
Alternatively, you can use this format to just identify the manufacturers or vendors involved in the deployment of the final output. This is called the turnkey BOM and it should include quantity, manufacturer name, parts supplied, description, type, and package. If it has been supplied to you by a distributor, include additional entries to input their data too in the spreadsheet.
Benefits of using bill of materials format
The thought of using BOM to your business is rewarding in many ways.
- You can keep a check of quality and choose the right stakeholder to maximize the same using this software generated printable.
- Communication gets streamlined and every stakeholder is aware of the transaction.
- Inventory errors are avoided to a greater extent.
- You save time by using this format as it records accurate data and allows you to fetch essential information anytime. As a result, you can make better business decisions.
Concluding remarks
While it is a good thought to adopt this procedure, you need to ensure that there is a control in terms of access and security. Also, make it as detailed as possible as it helps at a later time.
