Bill of Material Row Mapping

[jparks_79]

Hey Vaulters,

Has anyone played around with 2015 R2? Specifically the new possibility of mapping BOM Row properties. I am trying find different possibilities and cant find much documentation on how the mapping works between inventor and vault.

We have a need to map custom Bill of Material properties to the Item BOM for transfer to ERP. 

For example, we have a plate with a hole with part number "A" and a pin with part number "B".  These 2 components can be assembled together to create many different part numbers. depending on how far the pin is pressed into the hole. We document the length the pin sticks out of the plate in the parts list. Below is a simple representation. One thing to note is we create many assemblies with the same components.

Assembly "A" could have pins protuding 5 mm and assembly "B" could have the pins protruding 10 mm. So I cant apply a length value to the pin property because that value changes depending on how it is assembled.

What I am looking for is how to create the inventor BOM that has a property similiar to the "Item" property. These values are only applied to that current assembly. I am looking to add an additional property, "Custom Property Text", then MAP that to the Vault Item BOM. 

I know that was a lot of details, but I hope someone can understand the request :-). Any help would be appreciated

[minkd]

In Inventor, in order to have multiple rows of the same "item" with different properties (such as length), the rows have to come from different files. Therefore, you will need a different Inventor file for each pin length.  They can each have the same value for whatever you are using for "equivalence" (by default part-number), so each file will represent the same item, and different rows for that item can get their properties from the file they represent.

Hope this helps,

-Dave

[jparks_79]

Hi Dave,

I know about the row merge enhancement. But that isn't quite what I am looking for. Each unique assembly will have the same components and same files. Pins will be the same length. Only assembled differently(inserted at different depths)

Assembly "a"

          |_______Plate "1"  [QTY] 1 

          |_______Pin "1"     [QTY] 1 [Position Text] Install length=8

Assembly "b"

          |_______Plate "1"  [QTY] 1 

          |_______Pin "1"     ]QTY] 1 [Position Text] Install length=10

So the problem I am running into is, I can only add custom iproperties to the Bill of Materials. and those appear to be applied to the component files, not the assembly. And I don't want that for several reasons. First, many of these parts are released and cannot be modified. Second, in the Pin example i gave, the position text changes depending what assembly the pin is used and how it is installed. So I am really looking how to add another property like "item". Which appears to be saved only on the assembly.

[minkd]

Unfortunately, Inventor does not support BOM properties for children that come from the parent.  The only exception to this (that I'm aware of) is quantity.

In order to get the behavior you desire, you will need to request that feature from the Inventor team.

-Dave

[jparks_79]

Hi Dave,

So what are some typical workflows which the BOM row property would be mapped from Inventor? I see the possibility for manually entering the fields directly from the items. But I am having a hard time how to map these properties.

From what I understand, these properties do not apply to the children, and only exist on the parent assembly item. Is my understanding correct?

Thanks for the help.

Regards,

Jeremy

[mikel_martin]

Your asking for an example in Inventor, but in Inventor you can not, unless you create two files that end up mapped to the same item.

Thats just the way Inventor works.

But other systems (example Acad M) you can. But mainly because the BOM is not really related to files.

[jparks_79]

Hi Mikel,

Inventor actual has 1 property in the BOM, "ITEM". This is generally stored on the assembly file and we used it most frequently as the position number or baloon number. This allows for a bolt to be item "25" in one assembly and "2" in another.

As it appears though, this is the only property of its kind in the inventor BOM. Unless the API has some extended fuctionality.

After a couple replies, I am getting the feeling that the new vault property type "BOM Row" is not meant to used in the same way as Item, Row ID or Position number. Would i be correct?