Electronic products are made up of numerous parts. This list of features needs to be created, checked, and even audited regularly if your organization is responsible for manufacturing and distributing any electronic product. It cannot be ignored.
In a complete layperson’s terms, the Bill of Materials (BOM) could be considered the “shopping list” of any given electronic product manufacturer. It should contain everything necessary to make sure that you get the parts you need for your product.
The BOM should answer as many questions related to your electronic product as possible, from what they are, how they should assemble, to what kind of staff, and how much team is necessary for the assembly.
Let’s compare the tech industry to the service industry. Would the proprietors of any given business in the service industry not come up with similar lists? Of course, they would. They essentially have their version of a BOM, which assists them when they need to order supplies or hire staff.
How to create a BOM？
There are three questions you need to be asking yourself when creating a BOM for your next project: The “when,” the “what,” and the “how.” After discussing these topics with your selected staff and the client who has assigned the project to your organization, you can then proceed with your project.
It would help if you thought of an electrical product project like the head chef of a restaurant feels when preparing their restaurant. There are more similarities between the two than you think.
Most restaurants need to answer these three questions quickly, accurately, and in the right order. If they do not (and most do not), they usually face dire consequences down the road.
It is what happens with smaller-scale restaurants. They approach these questions in an air of panic, not knowing what question to answer first and getting less than complete information on answering these questions. The larger chain restaurants have an established system of answering these questions.
The system in question is the same when it comes to electrical product projects. When you have been assigned an electrical product project, you are essentially preparing something, just like the head chef at a restaurant meets preparing food for diners. The only real difference here is that there is no real creative factor involved. There is no “menu creation” for an electrical product.
When should this project ideally be finished by?
It becomes the first question that needs to be answered. Without a proper time frame, you don’t know what kind of preparations and people you need to do. Because the components in the EBOM are costly, you need to have a time frame. Do you need to ask: When should this project ideally be finished by?
Note the wording of this question: When should this project ideally be finished by? The best reason to ask what should ideally accomplish something is if you give you a time frame, you’ll get a much better idea of how many people you will need for this project and how long they need to work. It will allow you to save money on the materials in the EBOM.
What will I need for this project?
Answering this question will reveal what your EBOM is. Remember, you do not want to create an EBOM from an estimate. The only instance where an estimate or a range is acceptable is when a time frame for the project is determined. When determining the EBOM, you need to create an EBOM for one product, and then multiply that by the number of products the project is requesting.
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