Bill of materials
Bills of materials: Comprehensive lists detailing all components, materials, and quantities required for product manufacturing.
Sarah Dotson
What is a bill of materials?
A bill of materials (BOM) is a comprehensive document that lists all the components, materials, assemblies, and quantities required to manufacture a product. This essential manufacturing document serves as a master recipe, ensuring consistent production and accurate resource planning.
Core BOM elements
Every bill of materials contains critical information:
• Part numbers and descriptions
• Required quantities
• Unit measurements
• Assembly relationships
• Revision levels
Key BOM types
Engineering BOM
The engineering BOM represents the product as designed, including all components and their relationships. This version focuses on product structure and technical specifications, serving as the foundation for other BOM types.
Manufacturing BOM
The manufacturing BOM adapts the engineering version to reflect the actual production process, including work instructions, tooling requirements, and assembly sequences.
Implementation uses
BOMs serve multiple business functions:
• Production planning
• Cost estimation
• Inventory management
• Procurement planning
Best practices for management
Effective BOM management requires:
• Regular updates and revision control
• Clear change management procedures
• Integration with enterprise systems
• Consistent naming conventions
Bills of materials form the backbone of manufacturing operations, enabling organizations to maintain consistent production standards while optimizing resource utilization and cost management.
Automate the work you thought would always be manual.
Request a demo of Parabola's AI-powered workflow builder.
Request a demoParabola FAQ
What is Parabola?
Parabola is an AI-powered workflow builder that makes it easy to organize and transform messy data from anywhere—even PDFs, emails, and spreadsheets—so your team can finally tackle the projects that used to feel impossible.
What does Parabola help with?
With Parabola, you can automate any process across spreadsheets, emails, PDFs, & siloed systems. Whether it’s reconciling data across systems or generating the same report every week, Parabola gives teams the power to automate it—all without IT support.
What does Parabola integrate with?
Parabola integrates with virtually any system. In addition to 50+ native integrations like NetSuite & Shopify, Parabola offers an API & the ability to integrate via email. Connect to thousands of tools—and work with unstructured data like emails and PDFs.
What are common Parabola use cases?
The best Parabola use cases are recurring processes that involve complex logic and messy data coming from multiple data sources. In practice, this could look like auditing invoice PDFs, generating recurring reports, or alerting the team of discrepancies.
Who are some of Parabola’s customers?
Teams at Brooklinen, On Running, Flexport, Vuori, and hundreds more use Parabola to automate the work they thought would always be manual. Explore more on our customer stories page.
How do I get started with Parabola?
The best way to get started is to sign up for a free account at parabola.io/signup. Our customers range from individuals to massive enterprises—so whether you'd like to start self-serve or with a guided product tour from an expert, we'll help you find the right package for your team.