SW BOM & grouping

In the old Excel BOM, if you had a part with multiple configs, and all the
properties referenced in the BOM were identical, then the BOM considered
them to be the same item and summed them together. With the new one, you
have grouping choices, but it appears that you can't get to that same
functionality.

If you select "Display configurations of the same part as separate items",
it does just that - all configs of a part are separate items in the BOM -
usually the desired option.

If you select "Display all configurations of the same part as one item", it
does just that - all configs of a part are lumped together in the BOM, and
this is for all parts. So, it takes all the Gr5 capscrews that are all
configs of the one part file, and calls them one item. Hardly desirable.

If you select "Display configurations with the same name as one item", it
finds everything with the same User-defined name and lumps them. This
doesn't work in this instance, because there may be several items that have
the name of "BY ELEC" to indicate that the electrical controls group is
buying those items, rather than the mechanical group buying them. One
option would be to check this grouping, but then all of the "BY ELEC" items
would have to be uniquely named except for the desired two, so they wouldn't
all get lumped together.

So, it looks like another option would be desirable. This one would be
"Display all configurations of the same part that have identical BOM
referenced properties as one item." This would optionally provide the same
functionality as the Excel BOM. Am I missing anything here, or is it time
for an ER?

WT

 

So, what you are saying is that you would like to be able to have multiple
types of groupings in a single drawing? What about editing the BOM
contents, that way you can take the items that you want to group together,
and make them one line item? Or do I have your problem all wrong.

 

If you group the items in the BOM contents, it merely puts the same item
number on them and arranges them sequentially, the "Display configurations
of the same part as separate items" setting still keeps them apart as
separate line items.

To answer your first question, multiple groupings are not quite accurate
either, because my proposed setting would apply to all items in the BOM, and
this would work because then the user would be able to control the grouping
with the config specific properties.

WT

 

If you group the items in the BOM contents, it merely puts the same item

I guess I don't quite understand what you are trying to accomplish. It
sounded like it was something where you could manually group some items in
the BOM, then hide what you don't want displayed.

 

When we tried that, what we got was the same item number on two lines, and a
quantity of 1 for each. Then if we hid one of them, we had to manually
change the quantity to 2 on the remaining one.

WT

 

Here a good tool to help it.
www.proxicad.com

Is a great tool