What is BOM?
Bill of Materials
A list of what and how many items go into making one product.
What it means
A BOM is a list of materials for a product. It's like just extracting the ingredients and quantities from a cooking recipe. Write something like “1 pen = barrel 1 pieces + cap 1 pieces + spring 1 piece + refill 1 piece”.
If you have a BOM, just specify the quantity to make and the required materials will be multiplied. The system calculates that to make 100 pens, 100 pieces of barrel and 100 pieces of refill are needed.
At the pen factory
On Day 1, you cannot issue a work order because the system does not know which components make up a pen. Ask Supervisor Park and connect the five components. The system can then calculate that making 100 pens requires 60 more black refills. One packaging box holds 10 pens, so its BOM quantity is stored as 0.1 box per pen.
Why it matters
Without a BOM, a person would have to calculate how much material to buy each time. If the BOM is incorrect, materials may be left over or in short supply, and inventory numbers may differ from reality.
How this differs from Item
An item is a name tag for each item, and a BOM is the “in” relationship between items. The barrel is an item, and “a ballpoint pen contains 1 piece of barrel” is the BOM.