Aras Innovator provides out-of-the-box capabilities for visualizing product structures across multiple levels. However, engineering teams working with large and complex Bills of Materials often require faster access to information and more efficient ways to search, analyze, and maintain product data across the entire hierarchy.
This solution enhances BOM management in Aras Innovator by providing a unified workspace for multi-level BOM exploration, maintenance, and analysis. Unlike the standard BOM experience, it enables full-hierarchy search, multi-level editing, integrated visibility of related engineering information, and instance-based product structure analysis from a single interface.
By reducing context switching and minimizing navigation across multiple tabs and forms, the solution helps streamline BOM maintenance, improve engineering productivity, and strengthen traceability across the product lifecycle.
Business Problem
Engineering and manufacturing organizations managing complex products commonly face the following challenges:
- Fragmented product structure management: Users often need to switch between multiple interfaces to view structure information, BOM-specific data, and related engineering information, reducing efficiency and increasing the risk of errors.
- Limited ability to work across the entire BOM hierarchy: While product structures can be visualized, engineering teams often need to search, analyze, and manage data across all levels of the BOM from a single workspace.
- Inefficient BOM maintenance processes: Updating product structures may require opening and editing individual assemblies separately, making routine BOM maintenance time-consuming and error-prone.
- Limited instance-level visibility: Engineering teams often need insight into individual component occurrences within assemblies, including reference designators and occurrence-specific information, to support traceability, validation, and detailed product analysis.
These challenges often lead to longer analysis cycles, increased engineering effort, and higher risk during product development and manufacturing.
Approach
The solution applies a workspace-centric approach to BOM management by combining product structure navigation, editing capabilities, engineering context, and BOM maintenance activities within a single user experience. By reducing context switching, engineers can perform common BOM maintenance and analysis activities without leaving the BOM environment. This approach helps organizations:
- Consolidate product structure information: Combine product structure and BOM-specific data in a single expandable hierarchy, eliminating the need to switch between multiple views.
- Improve navigation and analysis: Search, filter, and locate components anywhere within the hierarchy while preserving parent-child relationships and context.
- Streamline BOM maintenance: Modify BOM and part information directly within the hierarchy without opening multiple assemblies individually.
- Support engineering workflows and actions: Execute contextual engineering actions such as promotion, revision creation, change management, and other supported part-related operations directly from the BOM workspace.
- Maintain engineering context: Access related CAD documents, materials, and other connected engineering information while working within the BOM.
- Support advanced product traceability: Enable both rolled-up and instance-based product structure views to provide visibility into component relationships, occurrences, and reference designators within complex product structures.
As a result, engineers gain faster access to trusted product information and can perform common BOM-related activities more efficiently.
Proposed Solution
The solution extends the standard BOM experience in Aras Innovator by providing an integrated environment for managing, analyzing, and maintaining complex product structures. Its core capabilities include:
- Unified Multi-Level BOM Workspace: View and navigate complete product structures in a single expandable hierarchy that combines structure visibility, part information, and BOM-specific data. Built-in export capabilities enable users to share and analyze BOM information outside the PLM environment.
- Advanced Search and Navigation: Quickly locate parts, assemblies, and subassemblies anywhere within the BOM hierarchy while preserving their structural context.
- Multi-Level BOM Editing: Edit BOM and part attributes directly within the hierarchy.
- Engineering Data Visibility: Display related engineering information, including CAD documents, materials, and other connected engineering data directly within the BOM workspace, providing users with immediate access to supporting engineering artifacts and associated information.
- Improved Lifecycle Status Visibility: Visually distinguish released and non-released components within the hierarchy to improve product maturity awareness and support engineering decision-making.
- Instance-Based Product Structure View: Toggle between rolled-up and instance-based BOM views to analyze both summarized component usage and individual component occurrences, including reference designator information.
- Integrated Engineering Actions: Execute common engineering actions directly from the BOM workspace, including release and revision operations, change-management activities, adding items to changes, claiming objects, adding items to favorites, and other context-specific actions, without navigating away from the product structure.
Outcome
This solution enables organizations to:
- Work with complete product structures from a single interface, reducing navigation across multiple views and tabs.
- Accelerate BOM analysis and component discovery through full-hierarchy search and improved navigation capabilities.
- Improve engineering productivity by performing common BOM updates and engineering actions directly within the hierarchy.
- Reduce effort associated with BOM maintenance through integrated editing and management capabilities.
- Improve engineering efficiency by providing direct access to related CAD documents, materials, and other supporting product information during BOM analysis and maintenance.
- Improve traceability across complex product structures through instance-level visibility and integrated engineering context.
In short: the solution transforms the standard BOM experience into a searchable, editable, and action-oriented workspace that enables organizations to manage complex product structures more efficiently while improving traceability, productivity, and engineering collaboration.
Where it applies
This is especially valuable for:
- Systems Engineering Programs
- Complex Manufacturing Environments
- Electronics and PCB Development
- Engineering Change Management
- Manufacturing Planning and BOM Analysis
- Product Configuration and Variant Management
- Aerospace and Defense Programs
- Industrial Equipment Manufacturing
- Automotive and Transportation Systems
- Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO)
- CAD and Engineering Document Traceability
- Enterprise-Wide Product Data Management and Traceability
Key Capabilities
- Single-Level and Multi-Level BOM Navigation
Users can view product structures at different hierarchy depths and dynamically expand or collapse assemblies.
Capabilities:
- View top-level assemblies
- Navigate multiple levels of hierarchy
- Understand parent-child relationships
- Analyze complete product structures
Business Benefit:
Provides immediate visibility into how products are assembled and how components relate to one another.
- Advanced BOM Search
Users can quickly locate specific parts or assemblies within large BOM structures.
Capabilities:
- Search by part name
- Search by item number
- Filter large product structures
Business Benefit:
Improves productivity by eliminating manual navigation through large assemblies.
- BOM Editing and Quantity Management
Authorized users can update BOM quantities directly within the Multi-Level BOM interface.
Capabilities:
- Edit component quantities
- Save BOM modifications
- Immediately visualize quantity changes
Business Benefit:
Supports rapid engineering updates while maintaining configuration accuracy.
- BOM Export to Excel
Users can export BOM structures for reporting, analysis, and collaboration.
Capabilities:
- Export structured BOM data
- Support downstream reporting activities
- Share information outside the PLM environment
Business Benefit:
Enables easier communication and analysis across business functions.
- CAD and Engineering Document Visibility
Users can directly access engineering artifacts associated with BOM components.
Capabilities:
- View attached CAD documents
- Access engineering drawings
- Navigate related design information
Business Benefit:
Improves engineering traceability and reduces time spent locating supporting documentation.
- Released Part Identification
The solution visually highlights released components within the BOM structure.
Capabilities:
- Quickly identify released items
- Distinguish released and preliminary content
- Improve configuration awareness
Business Benefit:
Supports better decision-making and reduces risk when working with released product configurations.
- Electronic BOM and Instance-Based View Support
The solution supports electronic assemblies and PCB-related product structures through Instance-Based BOM visualization.
Capabilities:
- Visualize electronic assemblies
- Display component instances
- Support PCB and ECAD-related product definitions
- Manage component occurrence information
Business Benefit:
Provides deeper insight into electronic product structures while improving traceability between engineering design and product configuration.
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