Do You Have Bad BOMs? Here’s a Few Things to Look For

So, we’ve talked extensively about what makes a great maintenance BOM for any company. What about the opposite? What do bad maintenance BOMs look like?

A poor maintenance BOM will naturally incur handicaps on business productivity, leading to increased downtime, reduced wrench time, among more widespread inefficiencies in your maintenance upkeep processes.

First, knowing what a bad BOM looks like is your first step towards properly evaluating how efficient your maintenance BOMs are. Doing so will help you understand whether your BOMs need to be upgraded or whether you should build new BOMs altogether. Below are some indicators of poorly build BOMs.

Ambiguous Data

One indicator of a bad BOM is a lack of naming conventions for labels and descriptions. If workers are unable to find parts because of this then it can lead to downtime ordering parts and likely the wrong parts being ordered.

A good BOM will allow you to quickly be able to identify correct parts since it will have clear and accurate naming conventions of parts that make deciphering easy. Better yet, the best BOMs will contain visual parts diagrams that will allow you to identify parts that correspond with visual indicators. If workers are having trouble finding parts from a lack of visuals or even ambiguous descriptions then it may be a sign your BOMs need a tune-up.

Incorrect Information

Next, if data is incorrect either because it was not updated responsibly or because of overlooked errors then this can cause long-term issues. Data needs to be updated regularly and errors need to be cleansed by avoiding the use of spreadsheets and through considerate proactive revision by multiple users.

Extra Stock

If your spare parts data contains duplicates or obsolete parts then it may result in poorly built BOMs. Oftentimes excess inventory surface from difficulties finding spare materials information in your EAM/CMMS system. The difficulty finding parts in your EAM/CMMS system leads to workers ordering parts already available. Inaccuracies within BOMs can also lead to the same problem if workers assume that inaccurate data is correct and order parts accordingly.

How We Can Help

Want to learn more about how to differentiate a poorly built BOM from a good one? If so, book a demo or download our brochure and our team would be happy to help you navigate that.