Writing

BOM Course

I've spent a lot of time managing Bills of Materials from the perspective of a small design firm / hardware startup who is developing a single new product. Moving quickly, without getting bogged down by heavy management tools, doesn't mean being disorganized! I've written about some of the techniques I've learned and developed. Individual chapters are available below and the full document is available here.

Intro

Introduction
Who is this for?
Driving Philosophy: Computer Aided Designing for Manufacture
Caveat: A BOM alone is not Planning for Manufacture
Guiding Principles

Background, Part 1: BOM Basics

Background: Design Files, Specification Files, and Manufacturing Files
Background: Bill of Materials

Background, Part 2: Nature of Revisions

Background: The Design / Build Iterative Process
Background: The Linear Nature of Hardware Revisions

The Release Process

Release management principles
Structure of the Design and Release Folders
The Release Process

Leveraging CAD

Structuring CAD Models to Take Advantage of Top Level BOM Export
Build Management using the BOM
Hotfix / Change Management using the BoM
Bonus: Cross referencing hardware to build logs using asset tags