This is a guest post by Jan Keijzer, founder of Adeon Software House
Analyzing and processing the “unknown parts” in a BOM is for assembly contract manufacturers a major resource drain. For new product designs, often the majority of the used components is unknown to the assembly partner.
We recently launched a new version of BOMArchitect®, a sophisticated BOM processing tool for EMS providers, in which we implemented the Octopart Interface as an optional module for our fuzzy part search process.
The Octopart Interface closes the gap in efficient processing of “unknown parts”; parts not existing in the EMS provider’s ERP system. The additional productivity improvement is amazing, because we could highly automate also this part of the part search and selection process. After validation, ERP (IPN) mapping and Octopart search, only very few parts are left over in the BOM for analysis elsewhere.
Another important aspect is the extreme reduction of typing errors in subsequent administrative processes, like updating the ERP system or providing a BOM with perfect information to CAM or sourcing/purchasing. Everything you need for efficient BOM validation, verification and processing is now at your fingertips.
Soon we will add BA-Partner to our growing family of BOM tools.
BA-Partner is truly a “wake-up call” in the relationship between customer (OEM or CAD Service provider) and contract manufacturer. BA-Partner offers OEMs and CAD Service providers the full BOMArchitect® power for advanced BOM creation and verification in direct connection with an assembly partner. It allows on-line analysis of every single BOM item, directly using the (filtered) ERP information of the assembly partner of choice. This technology makes it possible to find out if selected parts are known in the assembly partner’s ERP system, what the preferred component brands are, if there are any available alternates and which parts will be “unknown”.
The Octopart Interface plays a key role in this technology. Adding the Octopart reference information to the “unknown” BOM items makes it very easy for the contract manufacturer to find those parts back and drive part analysis, quote generation, purchasing and NPI processes in a very efficient way.
This innovative approach looks very promising. As long as information control and communication security are taken care of, we found that EMS providers are amazingly open to their customers. That fact initiates a completely new way of collaboration. Selection and verification of parts during BOM creation, instead of afterwards by a third party, eliminates nearly all BOM issues at the source. It also avoids adding issues and errors in the downstream processes to product realization.
In this way it will be possible to create a perfect, pre-analyzed BOM, without spending additional resources. On the contrary. Such a BOM allows a fast processing with an immediate impact on quotation and NPI lead times. On time-to-market and product quality further down the road.
Looking at the full potential of the version 3 Octopart API coming, we will definitely combine that with new product ideas we have under development, to support “the guys at both sides of the fence”.
Our introduction videos offer detailed explanation of our technology. Feel free to download our trial version, which includes the Octopart interface to check it out for yourself.