Articles

Companies need to be able to adapt quickly in today’s constantly changing environment, and often that means making changes to their products. Engineers make modifications during development and production with the intent of adding functionality, improving manufacturing performance or addressing the availability of a particular part. To make sure proposed changes are appropriately reviewed, a solid process is critical—especially if members of your product team are scattered across multiple locations (for instance, design engineers in Boston, the manufacturing team in St. Louis and component manufacturers all over the world). At the heart of a solid change process is the engineering change order. Continue reading

Most small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) start with their product bill of materials (BOM) in Excel spreadsheets — why should you be any different? Excel is a well-known, flexible application that everyone has — It’s easy and it’s essentially free. Small companies can make it through the first release of a new product just fine using Excel. But when companies release more products, grow internally or add more manufacturing and outsourcing partners, the act of managing an Excel bill of materials becomes much bigger and more complex. Those seemingly simple problems can impact you in big ways when you least expect it. But there is another way — you don’t have to use Excel spreadsheets to manage your bills of materials. Continue reading

A bill of materials, commonly referred to as a BOM, is a list of components required to build a product. The bill of materials includes the part names, part numbers, part revisions and the quantities required to build the assembly. Thorough BOMs also include the unit of measure to help with items which are cut to length or used by the volume, procurement type to indicate if the parts are purchased or made, and level to indicate which subassembly contains which part. BOMs that have circuit board assemblies (PCBAs) contain a column for listing the reference designators as well. Continue reading

The engineering BOM is often organized by engineers based on the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) or Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools used. And for any given product design more than one EBOM may be created. For example, the BOM for the Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) designed by an electric engineer lists the resistors, capacitors and chips. The BOM for the product as designed by a mechanical engineer includes custom parts and purchased hardware like an lcd, buttons, and screws. While multiple EBOMs may exist, the engineering BOM is not the only type of bill of material, there is the manufacturing BOM or MBOM that differs from the EBOM in structure and depth. Continue reading

The manufacturing bill of materials, also referred to as the manufacturing BOM or MBOM, contains all the parts and assemblies required to build a complete and shippable product. This includes packaging materials like colored boxes, CDs and printed quickstart guides. It also incorporates items that are used in the assembly process, like liquid adhesives or tape. Both off-the-shelf (OTS) components and custom, made-to-specification (MTS) parts belong on a manufacturing bill of materials, as well as non-tangible items like firmware. Any item that can be found in the final boxed product needs to be included at some level of the manufacturing BOM. Continue reading

Product data management systems (PDM) and Arena should be used together to control product designs from initial concept into final manufacturing. PDM systems, also called CAD vaults, help mechanical engineers store their CAD files and manage the complex file relationships, while Arena allows entire companies to manage their product lines through an accessible bill of materials (BOM) and change management system. Both systems are necessary for proper control over the entire product development cycle. Continue reading

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) encompasses the people, processes and tools used to manage a product and its associated information from concept to end of life. Throughout the stages of PLM, product data is generated and distributed to stakeholders within and outside of an organization. Within the organization, these stakeholders typically represent engineering, operations, procurement, manufacturing, document control, quality, regulatory, marketing and others. External stakeholders include a company’s suppliers, contract manufacturers and design partners. Continue reading

Whether it’s a new product development (NPD) process or new product introduction (NPI) to market, companies must constantly look for ways to optimize product change projects and processes for time, cost, and quality. Continue reading

Arena enables manufacturers to ensure RoHS compliance through its compliance management features. Bundled with a set of RoHS templates and a training workspace, Arena enables companies to ramp up quickly and effectively. Continue reading

Arena enables manufacturers to ensure RoHS compliance through its compliance management features. Bundled with a set of RoHS templates and a training workspace, Arena enables companies to ramp up quickly and effectively. Continue reading