Bill of Material (BOM)

A bill of materials sometimes bill of material or BOM is considered as a structured list for an object (semi-finished or finished product) that contains the list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, components, parts with the name, reference number, quantity, and unit of measure of each component.

The Bill of material is required by a contractor to complete a contract, or by a supplier or vendor to complete an order. A bill of material can only refer to a quantity greater than or equal to one of an object.

A BOM can be demonstrated in the following formats:
A single-level BOM – This kind of BOM shows the assembly or sub-assembly with only one level of children. Thus it exhibits the components required directly to create the assembly or sub-assembly.

An indented BOM - This kind of BOM shows the highest-level item nearby to the left margin and the components utilized in that item shifted more to the right.

Generally there are two types of bills of materials available for a product engineering and manufacturing BOM. The engineering BOM usually records items in accordance with their relationships with parent product as characterized on assembly drawings. But this is not enough to neither demonstrate the grouping of parts at each stage of the production procedure nor contain all of the data required to support manufacturing or procurement. These requirements lead to compel the arrangement of the product structure to be dissimilar so as to guarantee manufacturability. Thus, engineering and manufacturing will include the different valid views for the same product.

Theoretically, the BOM is created mechanically by the CAD system but in reality there is generally human interference or even re-entry.

The following information is visible in a bill of materials:
• Header (Product or Higher-Level Assembly)
o Product/Assembly Item Number
o Product/Assembly Name
o Product/Assembly Description
o Unit of Measure
o Revision Level
• Each Component/Item
o Item Number
o Item Name
o Item Description
o Revision Level
o Unit of Measure
o Quantity per (each higher level assembly)
o Effectivity (date in and date out or serial number in and serial number out)

Posted by Rajib Dey
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Global Associates
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Primus-DCF - A useful tool for construction estimating

The renowned Italian software leader ACCA launched the Primus DCF. Primus-DCF is based on a DCF (Document Computation Format). It is a free software for creating Price Books, Price Lists, Estimates and Bills of Quantities.

The software is designed to facilitate the Engineers, Architects, Surveyors and building contractors to create bills of quantities and estimate and export the information to Excel, Word or PDF files.

The construction professionals get the ability to open Price Books, Price Lists, Estimates and Bills of Quantities and insert, amend or copy parts of data from a source document to a destination document


With Primus-DCF it is also possible to take-off measurements directly from any AutoCAD drawing file and be familiar with the drawing entities and automatically send the measurements to the associated Price List Item in PriMus DCF. This will help you to constantly maintain the Bill of Quantities under control and Estimate’s budget with the progression of the design phase updating all data in realtime.

The software is compatible with Windows 3.x/95/98/Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Server 2008/7/NT/3/4/SP 1/2/3/4/5/6

Downloadable link
http://www.primus-dcf.com/en/Download/tabid/79/Default.aspx

Posted by
Rajib Dey
for construction estimating service