BOM Buy in and Break Down

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#1

Hi,

We buy in a BOM - that features 5 components that go into another BOM (our final product to go out the door).
I was thinking to set it up this way to help with ordering.
Is there a way to bring in the bought in component and let Cetec know that this means there are 5 components in stock when 1 of the BOMs have been received?
Hope that makes sense.

Thanks
Joe @ Dynamic Metrics

#2

Hi Joe,
Just to clarify:

  1. You’re saying that you purchase a BOM from a vendor that contains these components?
  2. Do the 5 components all become part of the same finished product, or do the components somehow get broken out to different finished goods?
  3. Are the 5 components also ones that you would purchase individually at other times, or do they always come as part of this purchased assembly?
#3

Hi Cetec,

  1. Yes, we purchase a single item from a vendor that contains 5 components, for transparency; We purchase a tablet, inside the tablet box there is a tablet, charger, cable, IFU & a reset tool.
  2. All the components may go into the final product, the change occurs depending of the country that to product is going to, as different plug types are used. So tablet, cable, IFU and reset tool are standard, the charger is the change part.
  3. We would purchase different chargers to solve the different plugs. so we may purchase other chargers (different parts) to cover different countries.

Hope that makes sense.

Thanks
Joe @ DML

#4

Thanks Joe, that does make sense. Thanks for the additional detail!
Let us review a bit, and see what the best way to handle this situation would be.

#5

@NachJo Just wanted to let you know that we’re still reviewing this, it’s a bit of a unique situation and we want to find a great solution for you.

A couple of questions about it for you:

  • How are you currently modeling these purchases in the system?
  • Does each tablet always come with the same charger, and is the charger the only part that gets swapped out?

Currently we’re leaning towards the best solution to be that you model each component individually, and then your POs would be for one (or whatever the qty is) of each component. Then you could model separate BOMs/revs for each tablet/charger combo that you “build” as part of your order. That way you can account for the individual components in inventory, and make sure that the correct ones get used a part or an order.

#6

Hi @cetecerp13,

Thanks for your deep dive into this one, hopefully this experience can aid more people than just us.

  • The model in our system is we buy the tablet BOM (one part number) and then we can bring that BOM into stock, all the other individual components are listed as parts of the final BOM. We are still implementing Cetec into our production so all the correct information is stored in our old manual system. Because of this I can manually adjust stock levels in Cetec to ensure that parts go into the correct place - obviously this is bad practice.
  • Sort of yes, the charger is the only part that would be changed. Although its currently set up that the charger and cable would be taken out and put into another BOM and these “power cable BOM’s” vary depending on where we are sending the system.

Hope that helps.

Thanks
Joe @ DML

#7

Agreed @NachJo, hopefully this information can provide some insight to help someone else solve a problem they might be facing!

As of now, the best option we have would be modeling the purchased tablet “kits” as BOMs with their individual components. You could even keep it to just the two components for the sake of simplicity:

  1. The charger/cable
  2. The tablet and other extras

Then you could model the other charger options as their own parts, and create revs of your tablet kit BOM that represent the possible tablet/charger combinations.

This still isn’t a perfect solution on the PO side. Buy the kit as a BOM revision (whichever one is most often bought), then switch out the charger part numbers as needed, using some inventory adjustments to account for the charger you are replacing on the tablet.
But different BOM revisions allow you to track the contents of the tablet you buy and switch out the contents as needed.