BOM with item variants

Hello, I could not find the answer on other topics…

I have a product with 6 different colors of cases. When creating a BOM for a generic product, I want to add a case with one of the 6 colors along with several other components that are common to all products.

What is the correct way to proceed? Do I have to create a BOM for each variant or can I create a BOM for the template and just apply the variants?

Thank you!

I think we cant create the BOM for template.
For Item Variant , Create BOM for each variant.

Geetanjali Shitole
New Indictrans Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Any help from the team? Thanks!

Yes BOM needs to be created against each variant. This is because raw materials / operations may change for different variants.

I work with manufacturing clothes, having to create a production order for each variant, it is quite complicated, usually each production order has two models of clothes (for example, a dress and a skirt), more than 2 colors and 4 different sizes for each model, many production orders would be required.

Does it have plans to implement something to help these types of production orders? Even without it, I still think the ERPNext is very promising. every day further improves * - *

1 Like

@Gleisson03 Not at the moment. Ideally even if you produce 2 skirts of same sizes but different color, the raw material used to color the two skirts would be different hence you need to maintain two separate BOM.
Do share across your views on how it could be better.

1 Like

Is there any improvement on this ? I think creating production order for each and every single size and color is very tough when you have multiple colors and size . If this can be managed via a single production order that will be great at lest if the raw material is same for all size or color

The raw material will never be the same for all sizes or colors. Specifically because the colors will be different and the sizes will use different amounts of material. In addition, the finished products are not the same.

The only thing I can suggest is using the production planning tool to make the production orders for the different sizes & colors.

I work in a clothing manufacturing company and had to think hard about how to facilitate the work of organizing production, because it’s very difficult to make the whole production process that is required in the ERP Next to various models of clothes that have almost always at least 6 variants. Sometimes up to 12 variants.

The most practical way I could think of is using the subcontracting system. Take a test as follows:

Create a Supplier and Warehouse named “Production” and follow the step by step the link below:
https://frappe.github.io/erpnext/user/manual/en/manufacturing/subcontracting.html

But even so, still you have to create a bill of materials for each variant. That way I can have only a single “Production Order” for all variants.

Any questions, just say that I will do my best to help and if anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to know.

1 Like

@Gleisson03 Do you have any advice for me. I have been looking this over and how do you keep your BOMS for getting out of control. I am looking at implementing this for a screen printer and if he has a job that has 6 sizes and 2-6 models then I am looking at 12 - 36 for one order.

not having found time to try the subcontracting you suggest one question … does counting get any trickier through this?

Hello all,

My need is pretty much similar. In this scenario, I believe different BOM for different variant is a foolproof way. I too am testing what is the best possible way to organize. My company has nearly 1000 Products and each product have 15 variants in color and 3 variants in size. So my SKU is like 1000x15x3=45000. :sweat:

That is one hell lot of BOMs to be created.

For my business need, I cannot create different items with different Variants. So for every item, we have been creating multiple BOMs (15x3=45 BOMs for each item + Sub BOMs ). I did test the same with Production order and I have been able to create production order for the same Item with different BOM. But One problem with this is the BOM description doesn’t read the variant. So it might lead to wrong item being sent to production. If we could add the variant name in the Bom, that would solve great deal of problems.

@neilLasrado If feel it could be made better by optimizing/ automating the duplication feature. Currently we are testing by duplicating the BOM and replacing the variant items in it. This is being quite laborious. If there could be a relation built to replace the Variant items along with sub BOMs then that will cut down lot of work.

If this automation is possible, the problem I foresee is the Varient Items being replaced with (and its sub BOM) need to exist / (be created) before duplication. I believe if proper procedure is followed and proper system warnings are set in place, this might work.

Another thought would be, a feature dedicated for New SKU creation which would duplicate and create new ITEMs, BOMs, Variant Sub Items and Sub BOMs.

I welcome comments if my thinking or understanding is wrong.

Hello guys good night.
We are having similar problem where if we have a tshirt to be produced but this tshirt used 2 or 3 tipes diferent of raw-material with different amount of raw material to use, example:

  • material line for tshirt 1 color
  • materia for the draw we will have on tshirt with 4 colors, been 4 tipes of lines with 4 colours;
  • Inc material to paint some simbols into the tshirt, we will use then several raw-material in same BOM, correct? how can i measure all of the material and bind it into the production order so customer can know very well how much of each raw-material he will need to use to produce 10.000 tshirts?
    thank you

Sorry to bump an old topic, but I also have this requirement!

I am producing packaging labels - the components are exactly the same for each label: sticky-backed paper, sticky-backed acetate, black ink, coloured ink. The only difference is the image sent to the printer.

What is the purpose of allowing a template to have a BOM, if it doesn’t reflect down to the variants?

I would suggest that, if the template has a BOM, then that BOM should be added to each variant. If the template does not have a BOM then, clearly, the BOM has to be created individually for each variant. Seems straightforward enough, except having to adjust the BOM on each variant, if the template’s BOM is amended (but processing for reflecting other template changes down to the variants is already present).

At least, this way, the user is in control of whether variants inherit a BOM.

A nice enhancement on this would be the ability for variants to inherit a BOM on creation, but to be amended subsequently, becoming private to the variant - but this would require much more effort and control.

2 Likes

We also face a similar issue. We customize products for customers. It would have been really helpful if:

A BOM is automatically created when a new variant is added from the item template as per the item template.