iLogic BOM Manipulation

[ddavis]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed here before, if so please accept this apology in advance.

When we create a manifold assembly we like to itemize each part individually. Meaning that if we have 5 valves that are the same, we show those as 5 separate items on the BOM. This makes for easier troubleshooting with a customer over the phone. Unfortunately there appears to be no way to manage this natively within Inventor, so we have to edit the BOM manually which defeats the whole idea of automated BOMs. I was hoping some code could come to the rescue. One thought I had was to export the BOM to excel and then have some automation within excel to re-number and sort the BOM, once complete import it back into Inventor in a table. I think this has issues of its own, but I'm not sure of another way.

I have attached a sample of the manually modified BOM incase I was unclear.

If anyone has some thoughts on this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Darek

[ddavis]

I have made some progress on this though I could use some help going forward. I have used the iLogic BOM export code from http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2011/06/ilogic-export-parts-list-with-options.html and have formatted it how I would like. I then with help created a macro for excel that automates the BOM restructuring. I then use this file as the "template" for the BOM export. This works quite well, as once I open the exported .xls I can run the macro and see the change. 

Now my question(s) is how can I call an instance of Excel to open, allow the user to make any additional changes then save and exit. Meanwhile Inventor is waiting for this to finish. Now once this is complete I would like to import this newly created BOM back in to my drawing with some pre-defined column heights and widths.

Is this something that is possible?

Thanks you any input and support anyone can offer.

Darek

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi ddavis,

There are some examples that might help at these links:

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor/Is-it-possible-to-export-selected-colums-of-a-BOM-to...

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor-Customization/Recurssive-BOM/m-p/3507166#M38941

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Inventor-Customization/iLogic-to-change-parts-list-style/m-p/...

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[ddavis]

Chris,

Thank you for those examples they were very helpful. A couple additional questions though. Is there a value that can be set to bring the excel window in focus? As it currently works it opens but behind everything else. This would be useful and probably less confusing for my colleagues. Additionally is there any way in which to import this excel file back as a general table through iLogic?

Chris thanks again for all of your help. You and your website are a great resource.

Darek

[Curtis_Waguespack]

Hi ddavis,

Let's backup a bit. Can you provide more detail on the unique valve name/PNs? I suspect we might be able to tweak the BOM to accomodate this without the need for excel, but I might be wrong.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[ddavis]

Curtis,

Thank you again for your help with this. What am I looking to do is un-roll the BOM so to speak. I don't want items with the same part number to be given the same item number. I could not find a way to do this within Inventor natively so I thought I needed to create a set of rules to make it happen. I have attached a quick assembly and the related files. On the drawing I show the standard Inventor created BOM and on the right I show the "restructured" BOM. I used your rule to export the BOM into excel, then I used a macro there to "un-roll" the items. Lastly I used the general table command and selected the output .xls file. This is the final part that I am trying to automate, though if it can be done a better way, I'd be glad to hear it.

The template .xls and the iLogic code are available from a previous post in this thread if you have any use for them.

Darek

[ddavis]

Curtis,

It turns out that I can only upload files under 1.5 MB, mine is 3.0. Is there a way that I can get these to you via email?

Darek

[ddavis]

Curtis,

I have uploaded and shared the files via DropBox, hopefully you'll have no issue retrieving them.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4129076/BOM%20Test.zip

Thanks again for your help.

Darek