Why Digital Transformation is Key for Optimal BOM Inventory Management

Managing Bill of Materials (BOM) inventory can be a time-consuming and error-prone process, especially for companies with complex products or frequent product revisions. 
Companies using traditional methods such as paper records, spreadsheets and manual data entry often find it difficult to keep up with increasing production demands. 

In contrast, BOM inventory management software can dramatically improve the efficiency of your inventory management processes. It will help you meet the necessary increase in demand that comes with business growth.

Here are some important ways a BOM inventory management system can benefit your business:

Efficient Management

BOM software lets you integrate multilevel BOMs, connect with your current Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and access all BOM data at any time. You can easily import BOMs from multiple systems to have better control. This eliminates BOM data silos and allows all stakeholders to have accurate information in one place, reducing errors and duplication.

Better Collaboration and Real-Time Insight

Synchronize BOMs with your buying processes to have real-time insight into design changes and component specifications. Efficient communication between engineering and sourcing processes can prevent production delays and alert you about sourcing activities. Working across teams and communicating which process owns the information will enable you to share information across departments, eliminating manual process updates that often result in errors.

Also Read: AI In Bill of Materials Software – An Overview

Drive Faster Innovation and Product Improvements

Empower your engineering and manufacturing teams with materials that are always at hand and within budget. With this system, handling the mundane tasks of matching product builds with materials availability, the team can invest time in more strategic and innovative endeavors. The result is better products, released to the market faster – yielding a healthier bottom line. 

For example, BOM software can be programmed to automatically alert engineers to potential bottlenecks during a product’s assembly process, so that design specifications can be optimized to make construction go faster.

Collaborative Quality Management

Coordinate across suppliers and internal departments for every quality management activity -- from the initial sample inspection to managing complaints and auditing processes. The traceability functions enable swift identification of the source of the quality issue and speed up corrective action.

Smarter Sourcing Decisions

Leverage ‘what-if’ functionality to analyze make-versus-buy decisions or viable substitutes for materials. 

Maintain a library of component possibilities and review the cost breakdown of different versions of your BOM to ensure you make the best-informed sourcing decisions. 

BOM software can also evaluate lead times and supplier resiliency to ensure you are supplied with the right materials at the right time.

Collaboration with Suppliers

Nurture a collaborative approach that allows for faster product innovation across the product lifecycle. Ensuring line-item visibility, with the ability to access vendor-approved part numbers. 

Communicate with suppliers for design specifications. By enabling suppliers to gain real-time BOM data visibility, this will ensure that they align themselves with the production cycle and quality requirements.

Nervous System of Manufacturing

Having an integrated product built with BOM inventory management software helps a company realize an efficiency gain, better product, lower cost and competitive edge in the marketplace. The BOM inventory software is the central nervous system of your manufacturing operations to ensure all runs smoothly and efficiently. This means a more robust and innovative manufacturing ecosystem.

Here’s how GEP can help.