I am sure many other companies deal with this. I have a BOM
for a machine. We export a file from the internal SW BOM table, and
then edit it in Excel.
With the new Excel version of the BOM, we add columns, such as "Date Ordered", "Price", "Expected Delivery Date" etc. However, at some point, there are always changes made to the SW assembly model of the machine. The BOM we have in Excel is no longer accurate. I know I can re-export the BOM table and recreate the Excel file, but then all our custom columns, dates, and edits would be lost.
I know we can create an Excel spreadsheet in an assembly drawing, but I've had problems with this in the past. I realize the internal Excel spreadsheet may be more reliable now, but in practice, we have often re-created BOM's in SW in an effort to force it to update or work around some other SW problem. So, I have doubts that using an Excel based BOM in SW will be viable.
How can we keep the external Excel spreadsheet BOM current with the actual assembly? Is there perhaps a method in Excel, facilitate us comparing two spreadsheets? This doesn't sound like a fun approach.
Are my concerns over Excel based BOM's inside SW outdated?
Joe Dunfee
With the new Excel version of the BOM, we add columns, such as "Date Ordered", "Price", "Expected Delivery Date" etc. However, at some point, there are always changes made to the SW assembly model of the machine. The BOM we have in Excel is no longer accurate. I know I can re-export the BOM table and recreate the Excel file, but then all our custom columns, dates, and edits would be lost.
I know we can create an Excel spreadsheet in an assembly drawing, but I've had problems with this in the past. I realize the internal Excel spreadsheet may be more reliable now, but in practice, we have often re-created BOM's in SW in an effort to force it to update or work around some other SW problem. So, I have doubts that using an Excel based BOM in SW will be viable.
How can we keep the external Excel spreadsheet BOM current with the actual assembly? Is there perhaps a method in Excel, facilitate us comparing two spreadsheets? This doesn't sound like a fun approach.
Are my concerns over Excel based BOM's inside SW outdated?
Joe Dunfee
You could create a SW Table based BOM that mimics your excel table, that way, when you do have to re-export, all data is there.
You could do the same thing where the internal excel BOM is exactly the same as the external BOM. In this scenario, create the SW excel BOM with all columns and information required, then save externally with the link "option". Now, changes can be made in either file (internal or external) the trick is when the file is opened in SolidWorks, you have to answer the prompt correctly to do one of two things; Update the internal (SW) with data from the external file of vice versa.