A 5-Step Guide to Working with Bill of Materials in Autodesk Vault Professional

The following 5-steps will guide you through working with Bill of Materials (BOM) in Autodesk Vault Professional: 

 1. INTRODUCTION TO BOMS

The Item in Autodesk Vault Professional is the object that is created and associated to each Inventor part or assembly (as well as other non-CAD document design files) and makes up the Bill of Materials (BOM). Every Item has a Bill of Materials as shown in the Bill of Materials tab (BOM View) of each item. 

2. CREATE / VIEW BOMS

There are 2 main methods of creating Items/BOMs in Autodesk Vault Professional: Assign/Update Item and Create New Item (BOM first). Once created, the items are shown in the Item Master.

3. MODIFY BOMS

After double-clicking an item in the Item Master, click Edit to make changes, then click Save to save the changes. Note: To edit a BOM, the structure view must be set to Multi-level.

Manage your BOM's rows by performing the actions shown in the below image for adding, deleting, and reordering rows. You can also toggle rows on and off for export purposes by clicking the light bulb icon.

To make changes such as quantity changes, click in the cell for the desired row and enter the new value.

4. COMPARE BOMs

To compare two BOMs, first (1) select the items or values from the drop-down lists, then (2) click Compare to display the compare report.

5. SHARE / EXPORT BOMS

There are many ways to share and export your BOM data. Three commands for sharing BOM information are shown below showing differences between commands.

Additional details are covered in Chapter 9, "Items and Bill of Materials Management" of the Autodesk Vault Professional 2021 Data Management for Autodesk Inventor Users  learning guide and in the ASCENT Webcast: Working with Bill of Materials in Autodesk Vault Professional (has a short quiz at the end!).

Below are answers to the questions asked in the webcast: 

Question 1:  What is the use of turn on/off a row?

When using the BOM Export command, only rows turned on are exported. Therefore, this gives you flexibility when sharing the BOM data for downstream purposes such as sharing with suppliers and integrating with other business systems. 

Question 2:  What is the difference between a Row Number and Position Number?

The Row Number or Row Order refers to row ordering in the BOM View. The Position Number can be thought of as the number that shows in the balloon and Parts list on the drawing. 

Question 3: Can the BOM comparison be exported?

You can export the BOM Compare report by selecting File > Print Preview then File > Export Document. The output formats to choose from are shown in the image below.

About the Author

Product Lead – Learning Content Development<br><br>Barb's primary responsibilities include the design, development, and project management of courseware for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) products such as Autodesk Vault, Autodesk Fusion 360 Manage, 3DEXPERIENCE, ENOVIA V6, and PTC Windchill. Her work also involves the development of custom training that is designed and configured to an organization’s specific environment, processes, and roles. Barb is a Professional Engineer and holds a degree in Aerospace Engineering. She is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and trained in Instructional Design.

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