If your bill of materials lives in a spreadsheet, you're in large company.
In a survey of 405 product companies, nearly half (48%) said they managed their BOM in a spreadsheet or with nothing at all. Two-thirds of the respondents had fewer than 500 employees. (Arena Solutions, via Manufacturing.net)
That survey is from 2016. The spreadsheet, for many small and mid-size manufacturers, is still there.
It worked when you had five products and three engineers. It starts to break the day you grow.
Why spreadsheets break
- Copies multiply. Engineering has one version, purchasing has another, and the shop floor printed a third last month.
- No revision control. Nobody can say for certain which version is current, or what changed since the last one.
- No where-used. Change a part, and there's no quick way to see every product that uses it.
- No link to drawings. The BOM says revision C. The drawing on the shared drive is revision B.
- Formulas break quietly. One inserted row, and a quantity is silently wrong.
- Suppliers get old versions. By email, with no record of what they received.
What it really costs
A spreadsheet is free. The mistakes it causes are not:
- Wrong parts ordered, and stock that can't be used
- Rework and scrap when production builds to an outdated BOM
- Delays while engineering and purchasing reconcile their versions
- Engineering time spent maintaining files instead of designing products
- Risk when the one person who understands the master file is on vacation
Signs you've outgrown the spreadsheet
You don't need a formal assessment. If two or three of these sound familiar, it's time:
- People ask "which file is the latest?" more than once a week
- A wrong part has reached the shop floor in the last six months
- Changing one part means opening several spreadsheets to check where it's used
- Suppliers have built to an old revision
- New engineers take weeks to understand how the BOM files work
Want a fuller check? Take our test: do you need PLM?
What to do instead
You don't need to jump straight to a six-figure enterprise PLM project. You need a few things done properly:
| You need | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| One source for the BOM | One current version that everyone works from |
| Revisions and history | Who changed what, when and why |
| Where-used | Every product affected by a part change, instantly |
| Linked drawings and files | The right drawing for the right revision, always |
| A simple change process | Requests, approvals and release, with a record |
| Easy sharing | Purchasing and suppliers see exactly the right version |
Why most small manufacturers haven't switched
It isn't because they don't see the problem. In the same survey, companies pointed to the cost of licensing, the difficulty of deployment and security concerns as the main hurdles. (Digital Engineering)
Enterprise PLM is built for enterprise budgets and enterprise IT teams. Many growing manufacturers have neither.
What we're building
We're building a light PLM for small and mid-size manufacturers: the essentials above, done properly, without the enterprise price tag or the year-long rollout.
- A secure file vault with revisions
- Bills of materials with where-used
- A simple engineering change process
- Viewing and sharing with purchasing and suppliers
- Software you own, running in your own cloud
We're starting with a small group of early-access manufacturers to shape it with us, beginning with the CAD tools they use most.
Join light PLM early access
Tell us how you manage BOMs and drawings today. Early-access manufacturers help shape the product and get first access when it launches.
Join early access
