Inventor 2015 Factory BOM export

[jnewon]

Hey All, 

I love the Inventor Factory Design Suite. The ability to snap assets together quickly and easily adjust parameters is very handy. However when It comes to exporting the BOM it is not. I have 85 conveyors layed out  with various lengths and widths and when I go into the BOM parts or structured it puts them all together and all the key parameters are VARIED*.   So as it sits the Factory BOM is worthless. I understand that they are lumped together because of the same part number.  but can't seem change the part numbers in the BOM. The model data is good but I can't export that list.

Any ideas on how to export a proper list of my conveyors out of the BOM?

Thanks John

Inventor 2015 Factory Design Suite

[mdavis22569]

It looks like the problem will be that you have a key factor the same and that's causing the issue.

For example 2 parts named: Conveyor Support, but the lengths differ, you'll see a varied in the length box (if you had that box, just used it as a reference) 

So for it to export properly, you'll need some it all to be unique ..

[jnewon]

@mdavis22569

Thanks for the reply

I understand what you are saying about the unique part numbers. The problem seem to stem from when inventor inserts the asset into the factory. When Inventor inserts the asset it does save it as unique file. So with this in mind I created a new asset with the part number blank in hopes it would put the file name in it. Nope. It always places the factory asset name as the part number. This here is the problem with the BOM.  And since the factory assets are read only I can't change the part numbers in the BOM. 

[mdavis22569]

without seeing the data set or more information, it's going to be a lot of questioning to figure out how to resolve this ...

Can you post something to reference ?

[jnewon]

@mdavis22569

Thanks again for your response.

To reproduce the problem all you would need to do is insert 2 or more of the same factory assets into a new factory design layout.

- Change the parameters in one of them (using the "Factory Properties" palette) to make it longer or taller.

- Save and open the BOM list. Here you will see the problem right off. The assets are merged together. Maybe you don't see the problem quite yet.

- The current BOM dosen't have the needed information that makes the assets unique (height or length...),  so I need to add a custom iProperties column

- Add a custom iProperty column, property name = "Key Parameters" and data type = "Text". This will add the column to the BOM list

- The "Key Parameters" is the information I need and is VARIED* because the same part number is used by Inventor when the asset is placed into the factory. 

There may not be a work around for this other than not using the factory assets. Which in my opinion defeats the big purpose of the using the factory design suite.

I feel Autodesk needs to fix how assets are placed within the factory so that the BOM comes out right. Since the each inserted asset part has to be saved with unique file name why can't this unique file name be used as the part number?

As for my current dilemma, Can I change the way the BOM table is Keyed? The BOM table is currently keyed to the part numbers column. Can I insert the file name column into my BOM List and remove the part number column and re-key the table list using only the file name column?

[rhasell · Accepted solution]

Hi

I am not sure if this is the same for your software, but have you tried the "Part Number Row, merge  settings" (I have not worked on Factory design suite)

[jnewon]

@rhasell

Your a genius! I forgot about this little button. 

Solves the issue at hand. Thanks!

Thanks everyone for your replies and support!