2009

Producing Bills of Materials
You can create a bill of materials (BOM) for an assembly. A bill of materials is
a table that contains information about parts in an assembly, such as
quantities, names, costs, vendors, and all of the other information someone
manufacturing the assembly might need.
Bill of materials information is automatically collected from iProperties. You
can modify values on the bill of materials by changing the design properties
on the Properties dialog box or on the Bill of Materials dialog box.
Within a drawing, you can create a similar table called a parts list. The parts
list uses data in the assembly bill of materials.
Tips for Working with Assemblies
■ Turn off visibility of nonessential components so you can access parts you
need and update graphics faster.
■ Create design view representations that highlight specific design problems
or assembly subsystems, and apply them when opening the assembly
model.
■ Turn off part adaptivity after you size a component, to speed up solutions
and prevent accidental changes.
■ Assign different colors to components. Select colors from the Color list on
the Standard toolbar.
■ Click a component in the browser to highlight it in the graphics window.
■ Right-click a component in the browser and use Find in Window to locate
a component in a complex assembly.
■ Use color to identify component groups. Using attributes, find components
in specific subsystems or from specific vendors and color code them in
named representations.
140 | Chapter 7 Managing Assemblies