Additional Capabilities > Manufacturing Process Management > Windchill MPMLink Overview > Key Manufacturing Concepts and Terminology > Product Structures and Bills of Materials
  
Product Structures and Bills of Materials
The primary deliverables for a design engineer are product specifications and an engineering bill of materials (eBOM), typically accompanied by 2D drawings and 3D digital mock-ups. These specifications, along with the eBOM, outline the detail designs for a product.
Using the eBOM and the digital mock-ups, manufacturing engineers establish strategies on how to build a product that satisfies these engineering specifications. Manufacturing engineers reorganize and restructure the eBOM into a manufacturing bill of materials (mBOM) that outlines the product from a manufacturing process and strategy point of view.
To ensure that what has been designed is what is manufactured, Windchill MPMLink maintains links between the eBOM and mBOM, ensuring that part quantities and changes are permanently tracked.
Product structures are lists of the parts or materials used in an assembled object. In Windchill, a BOM is a structure that you can generate, typically using a configuration specification as a criterion.
eBOM (Engineering Bill of Materials):
The as-designed product structure. The eBOM provides the engineering specifications (Form, Fit and Function) that define the product, and can include a digital mock-up of the product.
mBOM (Manufacturing Bill of Materials):
The as-planned product structure. A list of all the parts and their quantities required to build the product or assembly. From a manufacturing perspective, the BOM represents the set of components you need to produce the product, as well as the actual order of assembly. The different components in the BOM can either be consumed, destroyed, produced or disassembled by the operations in the related process plans.
Alternate BOMs:
An alternative way of producing a product. A list of all the parts and their quantities required to build the product or assembly using the same manufacturing part number as an existing BOM. For example, an alternate BOM is needed to support the production of the same object in different manufacturing plants, or to take into account different BOM types (Production, Testing, Costing), or to support the definition of alternate production methods (for example, if the lot size is significantly different).
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