I’ve seen some advantages and disadvantages of the single BOM (or UBOM).
As you said, on the UBOM, it is necessary to have some assemblies that are necessary only for manufacturing reasons. And as it is necessary to have only one owner, it spends too much money and time to accomplish manufacturing and engineering needs.
Everybody have to see things as parts, even when they are activities.
I’ve read that some automobile companies are trying to use Single BOM, is it true?

Thank you

1 – Yes, probably a good idea
2 – Not happening, with some questions about whether it is practical

Anybody else? Maybe some additional research needs to be done here?

- Do you include manufacturing process steps (a routing) in your BOM, to make it a Bill of Process (BOP)
- Do the same parts in your engineering BOM always end up as “parts” to manufacturing? Or do some of them turn into purchased items?
- Do you need to develop a Bill of Substance (chemical breakdown) for compliance?
- Do you ever create subassemblies in manufacturing that didn’t exist in the engineering BOM, to match up certain parts and/or interim assemblies for different parts of the plant?

The reason I ask is I wonder how complex your BOMs are (from a business perspective). There was a comment on Oleg’s blog (a reply to his follow up from my original post) that suggested that maybe smaller companies could pull it off.

Thanks,
Jim

A single BOM seems extremely feasible. especially with things like Google Wave coming out. It’s lame in a lot of ways, but really demonstrates the idea of centralizing a conversation and allowing it to be used in other environments.