Working With Bill of Materials

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    Check out the new Bill of Materials (BOM) command on the Factory ribbon in Inventor. This command takes advantage of Inventor BOM functionality so you can quickly create a list of equipment used in your Factory layout. The ability to add additional information like cost, description or key parameters means you can use the bill of equipment to create cost rollups for your Factory layouts.

    You can choose to make Inventor files writeable so you can edit your BOM. You can also process BOM sub-layout files under a parent layout.

    Let’s look at parameters. From the Assets tab, you can enable, or disable, the BOM feature that exposes key parameter data as an iProperty. When this is turned on, all key parameters are summarized in a single iProperty named Key Parameters.

    Select the checkbox under Bill of Materials to show the asset’s key parameters once your BOM generated. If you don't select the check box under Factory Options, you can also choose to add key parameters under the BOM Control.

    The three main functions contained in the BOM command include asset control, resetting your BOM layout, and generation of your BOM.

Before generating your BOM, set your asset files to either writeable or read only. If your files are writeable, you can modify them in your BOM. If you set your files to read only, your assets will be grayed out and non-editable.

    You also have the option to make asset files, and sub-layout files, writeable for editing. Previously, these files were read-only.

    Working with BOM assets in Vault:
    • If all asset files are checked out, they are all writable.
    • When you select the BOM command, you can then choose to check out asset files in order to modify them in a BOM.
    • After editing your BOM files, be sure to check them in manually in order to see your changes reflected.
    • You can also open your BOM assets without changing their read-only attributes.

    Select Yes, if you would like all of your assets checked out from Vault to be writable.

    Select No, if you would like only your local assets to be writable. If you choose this option, your Vault assets will retain their read-only status.

    On the other hand, if the user clicks "Asset Control" command, chooses "Restore all asset files to read-only status" option and clicks OK button, dialog below pops up:

    If you choose the Asset Control command, and then Restore all asset files to read-only status, the dialog below will remind you to check in your files manually. This will change files that are being controlled in Vault to a read-only status.

    Working with key parameters

    Select Apply key parameters to observe and sort similar-looking assets in your BOM.

You can freely modify the format of your BOM by re-ordering, adding, and removing columns. To return to the default format, just select Reset BOM Layout.