Why a Bill of Materials (BOM) is Important

If the nature of your business is production and manufacture, you’re likely to have experience with a Bill of Materials (BOM), or use them in your everyday work.

A Bill of Materials (BOM) is a comprehensive list of components, labour and equipment required to build a product. Although they’re an essential part of the manufacturing process, there’s a lot of discussion online about why Bill of Materials (BOM) are important. We thought we’d list the reasons for you here, so you can see why they’re so vital and how they can benefit this type of organisation.

You get a custom-made shopping list

Bills of Materials are often referred to as ‘recipes’ or ‘shopping lists’. They mention every raw material needed as well as labour or additional resources such as machinery, and in what quantity, which makes the procurement of materials a much simpler task. These can also be scaled up and down depending on budgets.

Never run out of materials again

With a clear list of materials, quantities and inventories, you should be able to manage what you need to ensure you never run of materials again. Bill of Materials (BOM) or manufacturing software will allow you to set reminders when stock is running low too. Trail kitting allows you to forecast materials requirements based on a given scenario.

Better planning

With a comprehensive list of what is needed to complete a project, planners have all the data they need to map out how long the project will take and how many people need to be involved.

Better costing

With better planning comes more accurate knowledge on how much time a task will take and exact detail on the cost of the components involved. This allows your sales team to cost up jobs and orders more effectively – making the company more profit overall. That’s why it’s worth including some of the sales team in the Bill of Materials (BOM) creation.

It unites all departments

Simply in the nature of its creation, a Bill of Materials (BOM) makes sure all departments are working as one. When creating an accurate Bill of Materials (BOM), you need the input from design, procurement, manufacture and sales to make sure the document is 100% accurate.

If you’re looking for advice about manufacturing software, or creating Bills of Materials for your business, get in touch with the team today.