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STEP INTO HIGH EFFICIENCY WITH THE CRITICAL BOM DOCUMENT. GENERATE, SHARE, MONITOR AND MANAGE BY AI.
The Bill of Materials is the center piece of manufacturing in supply chain management. Without the BOM, manufacturers would be unable to bring a product to market. The BOM contains data and instructions on everything from assembly to packaging.
Well implemented in large companies, the introduction of automation of the BOM by AI, NLP and RPA plays a critical role for the small and medium size business. The BOM is now a part of the digital transformation to industry 4.0 for the SMBs.
Manual BOM Headaches
Manufacturers are continuously confronted with obstacles when it comes to ensuring that all necessary data is accurately captured about each material, component and subcomponent on the BOM. Lists of materials are typically stored in spreadsheets or ERP systems, and moving them from one software to another is a manual, time consuming, error prone task.
This includes making sure that all the properties are preserved with traceability. If not, production runs can be delayed and products can even be manufactured out of specification potentially causing huge loses.
Generating BOMS by Automation
The first step of automation is to provide an accelerated and error free method to create the Bill of Materials. This includes its entire detail of components, subcomponents, instructions and all related documents, and the spreadsheet can finally disappear. Once trained, an automation can accomplish this task by automatically creating the BOMs and maintaining a traceability.
“Process Automation is a promising new development in business automation that offers a potential ROI of 30–200 percent—in the first year”. – McKinsey & Company
Missing BOM Items by Automation
Automation can also manage the BOMs by firstly monitoring and alerting managers when something goes wrong. It can be used to extract the required information from documents that needs to be on the BOM and alert employees when information or documentation is missing.
Identifying Alternate Materials by Automation
An Automated BOM process provides a real time monitoring capability that can identify missing components as well as locate alternative ones from designated databases. Managers can be alerted of such circumstances before they impact the supply chain, every item of data can be traced back to its source.
Monitor Regulatory Compliances by Automation
Until now, managers had to scrutinize any item on a BOM that undergoes any type of regulatory compliance change, such as a UL certification. An undetected compliance change in any one item can result in manufactured items that no longer meeting the necessary regulatory compliance which in turn increases product liability.
No Change to Existing ERP or MIS systems
The beauty of BOM automation is that no changes are required to any software systems in place. Automation lives in between systems and become the connective tissue, the pathway, and the glue that binds existing systems. This allows for a seamless management of data by an intelligent robotic process.
Not Just for the BOM
Automation is not limited to the Bill of Materials, but rather extends to the entire supply chain management process. From Purchase Orders, to Packing Slips, to Inventory Control, to Invoicing, process automation can eliminate the burden of simple repetitive work-loads, and complex mind-twisting tasks.
