OpenBOM Shared Views For Instant Supplier and Contractor Collaboration

In my previous article CAD Files and Collaboration, I was talking about how OpenBOM can simplify the process of collaboration by extracting CAD data directly from CAD systems and CAD files and making it easily available, instantly shared, and editable using super intuitive Google-spreadsheets like user experience. 

Today, I want to talk about how OpenBOM makes collaboration with contractors and suppliers easy using the instantly shareable dynamic user-defined view. 

The Problem – Excel, and Emails  

Before doing so, I’d like to speak about the problem. Imagine, as a manufacturing company, you’re working with multiple suppliers and contractors and you need to share the data with them. Your first challenge is to provide an access to suppliers to your central single-tenant PLM database. So, you don’t want to do so and therefore you extract BOM to Excel. But you don’t want to send some elements of this Excel to both contractors, so you split the Excel file into 2 other files, deleting information and synchronizing the information when it is coming back via email. I’m sure you already imagined how much additional work your team will have to do. And also, how many mistakes you will be able to make as a result of this process.  

OpenBOM User Defined Views Share 

Now, let me shows you how OPenBOM can handle this work. In the picture below, you can see a BOM I created from SOLIDWORKS with elements of PCB design. I want to share parts of this BOM with two suppliers and not to share all the information. So, for example, cost information won’t be shared. Also, I’d like to allow both suppliers to change the information in real-time to keep everyone on the same page (oops… on the same BOM actually). 

The following picture illustrates what I want to achieve.

I will be using the Share with View mechanism in OpenBOM allowing me to use a user-defined view with a subset of properties and filter applied in the view. Once, the view is shared each of my suppliers will see appropriate data. 

Video Demo 

Watch the following video to see the demonstration of how it works 

As you can see from the video, OpenBOM supports dynamic view sharing allowing users from multiple companies to access the same information simultaneously and by allowing each user to be restricted to each specific view. 

Conclusion 

Manufacturing companies are looking at how to speed up the collaboration to optimize digital workflows and to make information easily accessible to the right people at the right time. OpenBOM is eliminating the age-old process of extracting information, saving it to multiple Excels, and sending it via emails.  

Want to try it by yourself? Navigate to the following link to register for free and start the 14-days trial. 

Best, Oleg

Want to learn more about PLM? Check out my Beyond PLM blog and PLM Book website. Read OpenBOM customer reviews on G2 Crowd to learn what customers are saying about OpenBOM.