In the product development process, to express complex information Bill Of Material (BOM) is used. Now, the questions arise in our mind what is complex information and how this information present in the BOM view?
So let’s take an example of ‘Engine of a car’. After reading my first article of What is PLM? you may realize that this Engine belongs to a thousand parts from lots of nut to different types of piston rings. The few important parts of the Engine are a piston, cylinder, piston rings, crankshaft, crankcase, spark plugs, valves, springs, fuel-air injector, etc. Now, if someone wants to do assembly or design of these parts, then he arranges these parts information in such a way that, he can get a simpler understanding of how these parts are assembled or design. If we look from a design point of view, this information gives us dimension and tolerances idea of how adjacent parts changes if we change one part. For example, if we change cylinder radius then ultimately we want to do changes in a piston radius also. To make the information about this complex situation in an easy way, we use a graphical hierarchical method. This method is know as BOM (Bill Of Material) representation.
BOM of a CAR
The figure shows a BOM of car. In Figure details of the piston is shown in an assembly point of view. If we change the view such as design, sells, we can create different types of BOM. In BOM representation we can create complex information in a simpler, understandable format. BOM is a representation of details of all parts and parts information required to make a final product.
PLM Philosophy 