Manipulation of BOM for Sub-assembly Configuration Groupings

This article was written as a guide for manipulating the BOM to group some sub-assembly configuration together while keeping others separate. When creating a top level assembly, sometimes the components of different configuration are the same, only the positioning is different, so with respect to the BOM part number, they can all be grouped as one item. Other times, different configurations have different part numbers and thus require different lines in the BOM. When you have both of the above examples above in one assembly, some manipulation is required to for the assemblies to be displayed in the BOM correctly.

Premise:

In this example, there is a part, and two sub-assemblies, each with two configurations. In the default BOM, the configurations are each shown individually. I want the Same Config to be grouped together (QTY = 6) while the Different Config to be grouped separately as they are at the moment.

The highlighted options under Part Configuration Groupings by default will either show the above image with the first and third option, or the below image with the second grouping option. Based on the configurations, it will either combine the configurations as one, or keep them separate, but not both.

Solution:

To manipulate this, we use the third option "Display configurations with the same name as one item," but we will want to make changes to the configuration properties first. In this example, for the Same Config sub-assembly, display the configurations, right click on the configurations you want grouped together one at a time and select properties.

Once there, under the Bill of Materials options, you will want to select a User Specified name, then rename the configurations you want grouped together as the same name. Then save the sub-assembly and re-enter the drawing.

Within the drawing, select the BOM to bring up the property manager. Under the Part Configuration Grouping, select the last option "Display configurations with same name as one item." Since the names of the configurations match, the two separate configuration have been grouped for "Same Config", while the "Different Config" remains not grouped together.

If you have any questions or need clarification on any of the methods described in this article, feel free to contact Hawk Ridge Systems Technical Support at support@hawkridgesys.com.