The Bill of Materials
Since starting Dragon Innovation we’ve talked with thousands of hardware companies and factories about how to start manufacturing and scale from a prototype to high volume production. There is a surprising lack of consistency amongst BOMs and a lot of confusion and insecurity, and friction because of it. A critical starting point for this conversation is reviewing a Bill of Materials(BOM), which serves as the foundation for building the product. It’s a fundamental set of data, used throughout the process. A well constructed BOM clearly communicates all of the technical ingredients required to build the product.
From this information, it’s possible to determine:
- Lead-time to procure the materials
- Cost of Goods Sold(COGS)
- Manufacturing processes
- Quality of the Design for Assembly
- Supply chain robustness
- Cash flow requirements
The Dragon Standard BOM
To help make things easier we created the Dragon Standard BOM, which is a free tool for the hardware community.
Built as a Google Sheets Add-on, it’s like a template on steroids, providing a proven, pro-grade BOM format that companies can use with confidence.
Scan for Issues
Identify duplicate parts to avoid confusion. No more redundant quantity or extra costs.
Generate reports
Simply create BOM visualizations to understand what is driving cost and complexity in your project.
Easy collaboration
We built the Dragon Standard BOM as a Google Sheets Add-on so you can easily collaborate and share with your team and partners.