In Aletiq, a manufacturing process consists of the Manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM) and the Bill of operations.
Aletiq lets you manage several processes in parallel for the same product (main process, backup, subcontracting…), each configuration tracked by its manufacturing index.
mBOM components can be consumed within the operations of the bill of operations, and synchronized with the ERP through an integration.
What is the mBOM for?
The Manufacturing Bill of Materials (mBOM) is the "shop floor" view of your product. Where the definition bill of materials (eBOM) describes the product as it is designed, the mBOM restructures it as it is actually manufactured: groupings, intermediate components, consumables, production quantities.
In practice, you give production a bill of materials that matches the reality of the shop floor, while keeping the link and traceability with engineering.
Prerequisite: a manufacturing process
An mBOM is always created within a manufacturing process that has an applicable definition linked to it. This definition is the source used to build the mBOM.
💡 Managing manufacturing processes is detailed in the article Create and edit a manufacturing process.
Build the mBOM
Go to the Manufacturing BOM section of the Manufacturing tab,
Click Specify the manufacturing BOM,
Copy the components from the definition bill of materials (eBOM) to start from a base faithful to the design,
Then adapt the structure to your production needs:
Create an article,
Link an existing article,
Hide components within sub-assemblies,
Adjust quantities,
Edit the applicable definition indexes.
Adding components from the definition can be done in bulk and via drag and drop.
Manage quantities and indexes
Aletiq reconciles the quantities entered on the definition side (eBOM) and the manufacturing side (mBOM), so you can spot intended differences or omissions at a glance.
For definition indexes, the rule depends on the applicable definition:
a component that is also in the eBOM inherits the eBOM index and cannot be changed independently;
a component outside the eBOM (or when there is no applicable definition) uses the latest approved index, which you can adjust.
This keeps engineering and manufacturing consistent, with no manual re-entry of indexes.
Navigate and compare
On large structures, several tools speed up the work:
Filters and search: quickly find a component or target what changed using the comparison status;
Inline actions: update a quantity, remove a line or the root, or open the eBOM/mBOM comparison, directly from the mBOM display;
Compare two mBOMs: see the difference between two bills of materials using the same statuses as for eBOMs.
You identify in seconds what sets two configurations or two indexes apart, with no line-by-line review.
Validate the mBOM
💡 To validate the process, all the definitions of the mBOM components must be approved. This ensures manufacturing relies on frozen, reliable definitions.
💬 A question? Contact our team via the Aletiq chat.