Expands on the proposal bill of material explaining features such as importing a BOM from PLM or SAP, copying a BOM, deleting a BOM, creating a similar-to, cascading complexity and downloading the BOM structure to Excel
A proposal bill of material or BOM represents how hardware (proposal line items) is produced as a structured or indented list of assemblies and sub-assemblies making up each end item. These indented structures can be:
- Standard BOMs i.e. the same product structure and design is adopted for that part number across all contracts and bids in your company
- Proposal-specific BOMs meaning that the line item deliverable is either new or somewhat uniquely engineered or modified for this bid
- Configurable BOMs meaning that certain sub-components or quantities depend on features or options on the end item (think of a laptop with memory, CPU, screen-size, color etc. attributes impacting the parts list).
These BOMs can be managed in your SAP or PLM system (e.g. for standard BOMs) or in iPE (for proposal-specific BOMs). When you import a BOM from your SAP or PLM toolset it becomes proposal-specific. Standard BOMs "refer" to the SAP or PLM system, for this reason standard BOMs cannot be updated, other than editing of proposal-specific attributes such as lead-time, make/buy indicator and of course the rolled-up cost. You can update or 'sync' a standard BOM from SAP or PLM at any time, and edit proposal-specific BOMs that contain standard BOMs.
SAP or PLM BOMs can be imported into your proposal in one of three ways:
- By entering the end item or BOM header part number in the proposal LINE ITEM tab and clicking on the Import link. If a make-part, the standard BOM is automatically imported from SAP or PLM as a multi-level proposal-specific indented structure depending on the configuration of your proposal line item type done by your implementation consultant, as explained here
- By importing a BOM from Excel as explained here
- From the BOM gear menu as explained below. Use import from the gear menu when you want to import a sub-structure or similar-to part below a specific node in your existing proposal BOM
Go to the MATERIAL or PROCUREMENT & PRODUCTION tab in the estimating application or menu, to edit an indentured BOM structure and to create consolidated, costed material requirements. To import or copy in a standard BOM, or a proposal-specific BOM from another proposal or quote, click on the gear menu next to the node under which you want to import the BOM and select "Add or Import" from the menu.
- To import a standard BOM:
- At the same level as the selected node - as a sibling component sharing the same parent assembly - select the first option "add level 'current level'"
- Below the selected node as a child of the row where you clicked on the gear menu click on the second menu option "add level 'current + 1'"
- Either way you will get a new row without a part number associated in your BOM structure, as shown below
- You can either leave the row without a part number and simply edit the description or select a part number as shown below
- If you leave the row as a text it it won't be costed however you can still manually add and cost BOM components below this text item which have part numbers
- If you select a part number which is itself a BOM then you will have the option to import that BOM and the part gets costed based on its routing
- If you select a part without a BOM then nothing is imported and that part gets costed as a purchased part
- To import or copy a proposal-specific BOM from another quotation click on the third sub-menu "Copy BOM from a quote". You will be given a popup panel (shown below) where you:
- Select or search for the proposal you want to copy the BOM from
- Select the BOM header part number you want to copy from within the reference proposal. You can choose any part at any level of the input proposal-specific BOM, other than of course the lowest level purchased parts which do not have a BOM
- To include a standard BOM in a single step vs. adding a level then clicking on the text item and searching for a BOM, select the fourth sub-menu option to "Include a Standard BOM". The popup to select the standard BOM imports the selected BOM and its components below the current node as a child. If you wanted it to be next to the current node you can always drag the imported header material up to the parent or drop it just below row it should go under
- If you drag and drop a row on top of another row it will be added as a child below that row. Drag and drop "just above" or "just below" the row to include it as a sibling component under the same parent
Importing or Copying a Proposal-Specific BOM
After selecting "Copy BOM from another Quote" in the gear menu above you must complete the popup below.
- Enter or select the proposal you want to copy a bill of material (BOM) from. You can enter all or part of the proposal description of proposal document number, ignoring upper/lower case
- Enter or select the parent assembly part number or description of the bill of material you want to import. You must select a BOM which exists in the proposal entered in step (1)
- Select whether you want to copy the proposal BOM to multi-level or single-level. Normally multi-level copy is recommended. You cannot copy a proposal-specific BOM as a standard BOM
- Confirm or modify the description of the BOM you are importing, for example if your BOM is a similar-to it might need a new description
- Optionally enter the complexity or similar to factor to apply to the imported BOM. The similar-to factor is applied to all BOM levels which are copied into your proposal, though you have the option to modify and cascade different complexity factors after importing them
Other gear menu options besides import include:
- Delete which deletes the BOM component and removes any children from the BOM view. The actual proposal-specific BOM for that component is also deleted (provided it is not used elsewhere in the same proposal) so if you decide to include the same part again it will give you the option of including the standard BOM or re-copying it to a proposal-specific BOM
2. Make Similar To allows you to edit the description and complexity factor for the current row to make it "similar to" the part where you clicked on the gear, for example as shown below perhaps the client has requested a 2KW PA Top Assembly and you have only manufactured a 1KW PA Top Assembly before. Similar-to parts are very useful because you can refer to a pre-existing part which has manufacturing routing standards, vendor quotations or purchase order history, and at the same time apply a "complexity factor" to multiply the resulting hours or costs based on the relative difficulty of making or relative cost of buying the new vs. the original part
Editing the description and complexity in the popup is the same as editing the columns for description and complexity on that row
3. Cascade either the complexity or the supply site to lower level components and sub-components in the selected part's bill of material. Select either complexity or supply site from the sub-menu and then expand the components to see the cascaded values as shown below. Note that:
- Lower level child complexity values are overwritten with the current node's complexity. If you wish to apply a complexity on top of a complexity, for example a similar-to parent assembly which contains a similar-to sub-assembly - then manually edit the complexity factors for each impacted node in the BOM
- You must click on Update & Cost Consolidated BOM to recalculate the unit cost
4. Download the BOM list to Excel. All the components below the selected node are downloaded to Excel. You cannot upload the BOM structure from Excel at this time
5. Edit item/part which opens a new browser session or tab for you to edit the part "master characteristics" such as the lead-time for future proposals, the make/buy decision for future proposals and the lot-sizing rule and lot size if fixed.
Lead-time and make-buy can be edited directly in the proposal-specific BOM so only use Edit Item/Part if you want to set the default lead-time and make-buy for future proposals using this part. Lot size rule and lot-size can only be edited in the item master data
Item master data is normally imported from SAP's material master however you can edit the item master details here.
Tagging BOM Components
It is possible to assign custom fields to tags to your proposal-specific BOM components. This is useful to:
- Classify them for filtering and reporting purposes, perhaps like with emails to color code them or mark them for future action, or
- Assign tags and fields to the BOM components which will be passed onto the costed consolidated BOM and then to the cost model for reporting on material costs based on the tag values you assign
In order to assign tag values to your proposal-specific BOM first set up tags in your proposal SETUP tab. Any tags assigned to your proposal will appear as editable columns in the BOM view, provided that you have marked them as visible. In the example below a tag called "Rate Center" was defined in the proposal and appears in the BOM as a result.
Assigning a value to tag columns in the proposal-specific BOM will:
- Copy the same tag values into the consolidated costed BOM or make/buy part popup.
- Editing tag values in the make or buy part popup from the consolidated BOM does not copy them back into the indentured BOM i.e. this view
- Copy tag values from the make/buy part popup to the cost model.
Lead Time, Quantities, Scrap Factor & Unit Cost
The proposal-specific BOM not only specifies what parts make up the higher level assemblies, but also when these parts are needed relative to the end item, and how many. The following columns are available in the BOM view of your estimate:
- Quantity in Next Higher Assembly (NHA) is the quantity of this node or component required to make a single unit of the parent part number
- Extended Quantity is the quantity of this node or component required to make a single end item. It is the quantity in NHA multiplied by the extended quantity of the parent part number
- Quote Quantity is the quantity of this node or component required in this proposal, for this specific BOM. It is the extended quantity multiplied by the end item proposal line item quantity
- Lead-time is the number of days required to make or purchase this node or component. Since costs are assumed to be incurred on receipt or completion of the part the lead-time does not affect when the costs for this component will be incurred rather it impacts when the costs for lower level sub-components will be incurred, since they are required before this node can be started
- Due before is the cumulative lead time or the number of calendar days prior to the end item assembly delivery date that this node or component is required
- Complexity or similar-to factor represents a factor which is used to multiply the unit cost of this component. Click on Update & Cost Consolidated BOM to update the unit cost after you edit complexity factor
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Scrap percentage is the estimated scrap rate for this component. The extended and quote quantities are factored or multiplied by 1 + the scrap percentage, for example by 1.15 if the scrap rate is 15%
- Unit cost is not impacted by the scrap percentage however total cost is impacted since it is unit cost x qty
- Unit cost is calculated when you click on Update & Cost Consolidated BOM and represents the cost to manufacture or purchase a single unit of this part based on material costing.
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