Bills of material (BOMs) define the material requirements and product structures used in the supply planning and production planning processes in manufacturing. Product structures show all the components needed to produce a single assembly and how these components relate to each other in quantity and in quality.
In addition to material requirements, BOMs list all the subassemblies, intermediate assemblies, parts, and raw materials that comprise a parent assembly, along with the quantity required to make an assembly. They also show how raw materials are converted into finished goods and how components are put together to create subassemblies. You can use a BOM to define standard and stable end items, product families, assemble-to-order items, make-to-order items, and configurable products.
The BOMManager collaboration template synchronizes new and updated BOM information across an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application, Customer Interaction Management (CIM) application, and a Supply Chain Management (SCM) application. The collaboration ensures that all BOM information is the same for the source and the destination applications. This collaboration provides a common view of BOM information throughout an organization, which supports business objectives to maximize efficiency, improve quality, and reduce cost in manufacturing planning and production. BOM information is typically duplicated across multiple systems and plants, which support different business functions, such as planning, sales, finance, and production.
In this collaboration template, the source and destination data can be various types of software applications. The source application triggers the creation of a BOMHeader business object. Synchronization of BOM information allows separate applications to share information consistently whenever data is created, changed, or deleted in the enterprise.
This collaboration supports the synchronization of the following BOM data:
BOMManager uses the generic BOMHeader business object, which represents BOM information used in an ERP or CIM application.
This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on BOMManager. For information on standard features, ports, and configuration properties for collaboration templates, and for general information on creating collaboration objects refer to the Collaboration Development Guide.
Figure 1 illustrates BOMManager's ports, as they are displayed in System Manager.
Figure 1. BOMManager collaboration ports
Note: To prevent the collaboration object from using a port, bind that port to the Port connector. Binding the port indicates that the port is unused without causing the collaboration object to provide additional functionality.
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
BOMHeader | The destination application's connector | Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object. The result determines the verb to use when synchronizing the BOMHeader. |
Retrieve |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
SKU | Destination application's connector | Retrieves the SKU business object from the destination application. |
Retrieve |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
BOMHeader | Source application's connector or calling collaboration |
Receives the triggering business object. At the end of a synchronous call, this port also returns the triggering business object to the source application when the collaboration ends successfully. |
Create Retrieve Update Delete |
Business object | Bound to | Function | Verbs used |
---|---|---|---|
BOMHeader |
The destination application's connector |
Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration. |
Create Update Delete |
BOMManager is designed to be used as a stand-alone collaboration. To set up BOMManager as a stand-alone collaboration object, follow these steps:
This section illustrates the process logic for this collaboration template:
To synchronize BOM data between applications, BOMManager performs the processes illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2. BOMManager process logic
This collaboration template uses the following standard collaboration business processes:
For information on these processes, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
Retail and manufacturing businesses use Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) to track and maintain inventory. Not all SKUs are pertinent to supply-planning applications, so the collaboration can be configured to validate whether the object is necessary for planning. The collaboration uses the CHECK_SKU property to determine whether to check for the existence of a SKU business object in the destination application.
Figure 3 illustrates the process that occurs if the collaboration is configured to perform a SKU check. If the collaboration determines that a SKU parent business object does not exist at the destination, it raises an exception and stops processing without synchronizing the triggering business object. The REMOVE_BOMITEM_WITH_INVALID_SKU property can be configured to remove from the business object array any child business objects that do not exist in the destination.
Figure 3. BOMManager SKU process
InterChange Server Express can roll back a transaction when any step in a transactional collaboration fails. For example, when BOMManager is a member of a collaboration-object group that participates in a transactional collaboration, its actions are one subtransactional step of a larger transaction. If any step in the collaboration-object group's business process fails, the transactional collaboration details how InterChange Server Express rolls back the processing of every collaboration in the group.
When a BOMManager collaboration object is used independently of other collaboration objects or the collaboration object's From port is bound to a source application rather than to another collaboration, its process comprises a single transactional step. In such a situation, it is not necessary to perform rollback.
To cause a collaboration object or a collaboration-object group to perform rollback requires modification of the collaboration template. To understand transaction processing in the IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Express Plus system, see the System Implementation Guide. For information about adding transaction processing to the collaboration template, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
To extend the collaboration object to handle transaction processing, complete the following steps:
This section describes the standard properties and collaboration template-specific properties for this collaboration template:
This collaboration template uses the following standard configuration properties for collaboration templates:
For information on these configuration properties, see the Collaboration Development Guide.
In addition to its standard configuration properties, this collaboration template has the configuration properties described below.
Property name and explanation | Possible values | Default value |
---|---|---|
CHECK_SKU Specifies whether the collaboration must check for the existence of the SKU business object in the destination application.
|
true, false | false |
REMOVE_BOMITEM_WITH_INVALID_SKU Specifies whether to remove a child line item that contains an invalid SKU.
|
true, false |
false |
To view an explanation of the messages of this collaboration template, launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file. To launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file:
To upgrade to a newer version of the collaboration template, perform the following steps: