How to Activate a Computed BOM in SOLIDWORKS PDM

A bill of materials (BOM) is a tabular listing of the components of SOLIDWORKS PDM item or a SOLIDWORKS assembly, drawing, or weldment part. You can work with these types of BOMs in SOLIDWORKS PDM:

Computed BOMs: Automatically calculated from SOLIDWORKS components contained in an assembly or drawing. The computed BOM includes internal components, such as drawing parts and virtual parts. Computed BOMs reflect BOM exclusions you make in the SOLIDWORKS assembly and components. These BOMs can be ‘Activated’ to display in file explorer without SOLIDWORKS assembly visibility.

SOLIDWORKS BOMs: BOM tables in assemblies and drawings. When you exclude components from a SOLIDWORKS BOM, the SOLIDWORKS PDM BOM tab does not list those components.

Named BOMs (SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional only): Editable BOMs that you create from computed BOMs or SOLIDWORKS BOMs. You can check in and check out named BOMs and maintain revision records in your enterprise using automated workflow processes. Named BOMs are specific to the version of the assembly or drawing used to create them. You can update a named BOM to a new version of the assembly or drawing.

Weldment BOMs and Weldment Cut Lists: BOMs and cut lists for weldment parts. A weldment BOM lists each component in the weldment part with its total length. A cut list contains the cut lengths and quantities of the components.

In SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional, administrators can use the SOLIDWORKS PDM workflow to set up the export of one or more types of BOMs to an XML format for use with other ERP systems. Rules can be set to only export Activated BOMs.

SOLIDWORKS PDM requires SOLIDWORKS 2009 or later files for displaying SOLIDWORKS BOMs, weldment BOMs, and weldment cut lists, for updating named BOMs, and for many named BOM editing features.