Parts and BOM management

[Gaurav Kulkarni]

Hello, I am wondering what tools are used by all the people out there for BOM and parts management.

I am trying to setup some software that will help a team of about 5 to 8 engineers that will be developing boards. It would be nice if the libraries for the parts can be created once and referenced by everyone. This means that everyone is using a common name for the parts in the library. While excel is a good enough starting point, the file gets corrupted very easily just with 5 people. There is also no way to do good BOM management in excel.

What other tools are in use for this application?

 

[davenn]

. While excel is a good enough starting point, the file gets corrupted very easily just with 5 people.

hi there
welcome

what do you mean it gets corrupted ?

make the main data sections read only ( protected cells) so no one can change them

 

[Gaurav Kulkarni]

When the excel file is opened by one engineer, it automatically opens in read only mode for everybody else. Then an email needs to be sent out to everyone to close the excel file when one of the engineers has to add a part to the list. This is honored most of the time but takes time to happen.

Usually we just make a local copy of the list and and mark parts added in current session so we can identify them later. Then when we get writing permission (sometime in the future) we add all those parts to the master list. A lot of time is wasted during all this process and managing it all is becoming a major pain in the neck.

 

[Arouse1973]

Hello, I am wondering what tools are used by all the people out there for BOM and parts management.

I am trying to setup some software that will help a team of about 5 to 8 engineers that will be developing boards. It would be nice if the libraries for the parts can be created once and referenced by everyone. This means that everyone is using a common name for the parts in the library. While excel is a good enough starting point, the file gets corrupted very easily just with 5 people. There is also no way to do good BOM management in excel.

What other tools are in use for this application?

Hello
What software are the guys using to design the PCBs? Can you not have a lib folder on the network which they can all access?
Adam

 

[Gaurav Kulkarni]

Hello
What software are the guys using to design the PCBs? Can you not have a lib folder on the network which they can all access?
Adam

We are using Altium for PCB Design. Yes while we could do that just for parts management and make it work. That still does not do anything for BOM management. A system that holds all our parts might also be a good place to manage BOMs. That way we can keep entry duplication to a minimum.

 

[Gryd3]

When the excel file is opened by one engineer, it automatically opens in read only mode for everybody else. Then an email needs to be sent out to everyone to close the excel file when one of the engineers has to add a part to the list. This is honored most of the time but takes time to happen.

Usually we just make a local copy of the list and and mark parts added in current session so we can identify them later. Then when we get writing permission (sometime in the future) we add all those parts to the master list. A lot of time is wasted during all this process and managing it all is becoming a major pain in the neck.

There is another option... if you are willing.
Open Excel, and check the 'Review' tab.
There is an option there called "Share Workbook".

This will let users open the Excel sheet in 'Multi-User mode' allowing more than one user to write to it at the same time.
The trick here is this:
- When you click save, excel will check for and apply any changes that anyone else has saved.
- If there is a conflict, (User A and B both change cell B3) then the second saving user will be prompted to choose which data will persist (From User A or B. It WILL show the contents of the cell).

So, you should either manually save frequently, or set the auto-save time to something that will handle your setup. (Depends on how often the file is written to).

Additionally, Excel has a handy 'VBA' built in. This will let you add a simple 'front-end' that everyone adds data too. The script will simply save to pull new data, edit/add data, then save again to push data. If the front-end does this, it should be able to make any desired changes in a fraction of a second and should virtually eliminate anyone changing the same cell at the same time. I use this technique to run a simple 'stop-watch' style time tracker in Excel. I have successfully had 3 staff using it with at least 7-8 different timers going.

I can help you out with this if desired.

 

[Arouse1973]

What we do is generate a script (Mentor Graphics) that exports the parts list for the design into excel, we then save this as a separate parts list onto our system How do you guys work?
Adam