topic BOM and Model State in Inventor Forum

BOM and Model State

nduytinh01 — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:09:05 GMT

I have two Model State in Assembly, the first is Primary, it show all component, the Model State second ( created by copying the Primary ) will be suppress all content center.
On Drawing, I had modify Parts List for items number and save override to BOM ( with Model State Primary ).

The problem occurs when active model state second to preview, then i active model state primary and al number of item modified to 1, 2, 3,...

How to only use BOM Primary for two Model State?

Please help me resolve the problem. Many thanks!

Re: BOM and Model State

kacper.suchomski — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:01:14 GMT

Click the gear icon in the BOM dialog box and turn off renumbering.

Re: BOM and Model State

nduytinh01 — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:12:55 GMT

Thanks you for answer, I tried but it didn't work

How to active Primary Bom delegated for Model State second?

Re: BOM and Model State

johnsonshiue — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 19:55:18 GMT

Hi! To avoid confusion, let me explain the expected behaviors first. Starting from Inventor 2022, each newly created Model State has a BOM. This means the suppressed components are deducted from the BOM. This is a change in behavior from LOD in 2021 and earlier. However, if the Model States are migrated LODs, then those Model States delegate the BOM to Primary BOM. The LOD BOM behaviors persist until they are deleted and recreated.

It sounds that you like the old LOD BOM behavior and you don't want to have Model State specific BOM and you only want Primary BOM. And you can override the quantity in the drawing PartsList.

In your case, I suggest you use Design View Reps to manage component visibility instead. Design View behave very similar to LOD in terms of BOM behaviors. The invisible components are still counted in the BOM and PartsList. You can apply a filter or simply override the QTY as you wish.

Many thanks!

Re: BOM and Model State

jtylerbc — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 22:36:19 GMT

@johnsonshiue, That is somewhat unfortunate for an application I was intending to use Model States for. I have been watching this thread because it was already asking something I was intending to get into soon myself. We are late adopters of Model States - we're just now in the process of upgrading from 2021 all the way to 2025.

I understand the current behavior of Model State BOM's. This behavior is what I would want most of the time, when I'm using Model States for creating variations of a design.

However, we also often have to develop drawings showing the process of removing and replacing large equipment in a customer's facility. Normally these drawings have been done by our Project Engineering department using AutoCAD. A few of our Project Engineers dabble in using Inventor for this purpose, but it is a bit cumbersome because it requires using a combination of View and Positional representations.

Model States seem like a perfect solution to showing these operational steps without having to pair up two different types of representations to do so. The BOM is where this idea gets tripped up a bit. In this case, we would NOT want each step to have its own BOM. It is one set of equipment performing the job - it just isn't all visible at the same time, and the Model States represent these operational steps. We would want a single parts list that can be referenced by multiple views using different Model States. I was hoping that there was a setting somewhere that allowed you to pick which BOM method you wanted to use for a particular assembly.

It sounds like that's not the case. I'll have to figure out some solution for getting around this issue if I want to proceed with using Model States for these project drawings.

Re: BOM and Model State

johnsonshiue — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 20:22:31 GMT

Hi John,

Many thanks for your detail feedback! As you have seen over the years, the need to have Model States-like behaviors has been demanded by our users for many years. There is always room for improvement in any enhancement. It is only a matter of prioritization and execution.

At the moment, the closest workflow mimicking the old LOD behaviors is Design View. An invisible component isn't loaded on open just like an LOD suppressed component. Also the BOM isn't changed between the Design Views, since there is only one BOM across all Design Views.

You may want to look into Design Views and see if the workflow yield the desirable result.

Thanks again!

Re: BOM and Model State

jtylerbc — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 18:46:40 GMT

@johnsonshiue,

View Representations are how we handle this scenario already, so I'm familiar with how they work in this scenario. They handle the BOM perfectly, but have a different downside. In our application they get cumbersome because of the need to pair them with Positional Representations to deal with the fact that we are both adding/removing items and moving items.

At the model level, Model States make perfect sense as a solution to our situation. They just don't handle the BOM the way we would want them to. There may be some way to address it - either a workaround of some sort or a change to our own formatting. Admittedly, I haven't spent much time so far trying to figure out how to make it work. This was more an immediate reaction than a well-thought-out feedback.

Both methods of dealing with the BOM have uses for my company. Personally I would use the current behavior more, so this really isn't intended as a complaint about it. But if the BOM had a setting that could switch between independent BOM's for Model States and a Single BOM, that would be a great help for us. Seems like something I should post as an Idea when I get time.

Re: BOM and Model State

CGBenner — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:22:10 GMT

@nduytinh01 Hello, do you still need help with this question?

Re: BOM and Model State

jason_hetu — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 20:36:30 GMT

Hi, Some possible solutions for this idea are currently under discussion on the NDA based Inventor Feedback/Beta forums. If you would like to contribute to the discussion, please apply for access using this link: https://Autode.sk/InventorBeta

Re: BOM and Model State

jtylerbc — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 22:01:32 GMT

@jason_hetu, I already have access to those forums, and would be interested in that discussion also. But I'm not seeing a topic that looks like what you described. Any chance you could point me in the right direction for finding it?

I know you probably can't be too specific here because of NDA, but some guidance (even if you have to send it by private message) would be appreciated.

Re: BOM and Model State

jason_hetu — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 17:23:29 GMT

Hi @jtylerbc and @nduytinh01

You can find more information on the feedback forum here. https://feedback.autodesk.com/project/article/item.html?cap=fb14413735ee42c99624e3793b1[…]bb88b9aef815}&artid={D04688AB-281D-4FD1-A3B7-13C750B90DF0}

If you have any more questions/feedback, then you can create a topic in the Model States forum. https://feedback.autodesk.com/project/forum/topic.html?cap=fb14413735ee42c99624e3793b19a0b2&forid={723F759B-F5E2-466F-96D4-592F46DE568C}

Note: Links only work for those who are members of the Inventor Feedback/Beta Community https://Autode.sk/InventorBeta

Re: BOM and Model State

jtylerbc — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 19:33:27 GMT

@jason_hetu,

Thanks. I misunderstood and was looking for an existing forum topic. I see now what you were referring to in the Alpha feature list. I was just looking in the wrong place.