A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

Apple iPhone 6 and and cross product families BOM planning

Apple iPhone 6 and and cross product families BOM planning
Oleg
Oleg
18 August, 2014 | 2 min for reading

ipad-bom-assy

To manage Parts and Bill of Materials is not a simple tasks. I shared some of aspects related to the complexity of Part Numbering last week in my post – Existing data prevents companies to improve Part Numbers. The discussion in comments took me towards the complexity of Part Numbers in supply chain. Here is the passage (comments) made by Joe Barkai

…multiple BOMs with inconsistent numbering schema often hide a bigger problem: inconsistent attributes and metadata. I [Joe Barkai] worked with a global automotive OEM on issues surrounding architectural complexity reduction and global quality management. I discovered that each product line was using different part numbers. This was obviously difficult to manage from a supply chain perspective. But, not less importantly, other metadata and data attributes such as failure modes, labor operation codes and other important information were codified differently, rendering cross product line reporting and analysis difficult and potentially lacking, if not erroneous

Product lines and multiple configurations is a reality of modern manufacturing. The customization level is growing. On the other side to manage parts and BOM globally becomes one of the most important and challenging tasks. I found another example of that in today’s news . This is an example of a potential impact on Apple from management of bill of material  across multiple product lines and supply chain. Navigate to Seeking Alpha post – Apple iPhone 6 Will Pick Up iPad Sales Slack. Here is the passage I captured:

Apple still generates the majority of profits in mobile, despite the slight declines in market share. Last November, research firm IHS estimated  $274 in bill of materials and manufacturing costs for the 16GB iPad Air with Wi-Fi connectivity that retails for $499. Going forward, Tim Cook, operations man, will likely leverage Apple’s immense buying power to further drive down costs for component parts shared between the iPhone 6 and eventual iPad upgrade.

I have no information about PLM system used by Apple to manage bill of materials across product lines. However, I guess, re-use of components among different product lines is a very typical approach used by many manufacturing companies.

What is my conclusion? The complexity of bill of materials management across product lines and supply chain are skyrocketing these days. To manage part numbers, bill of materials, cost and multiple product lines can become a critical part of PLM solution to support manufacturing profitability. Just my thoughts…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
31 July, 2014

Do you remember “throw over the wall of manufacturing” statement? This is a traditional engineering world. Pretty much sequential. Engineers...

18 February, 2024

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming a topic for discussions in the boardrooms of companies across the globe, and the...

11 May, 2025

In my The Top 5 PLM Commandments (2025 Edition): How to Actually Win at Product Lifecycle Management article I shared...

27 November, 2014

MBOM (Manufacturing BOM) is a tough problem. Initially, you might think about it as an easy problem. Especially, since companies...

12 August, 2020

A little bit more than one month ago, two giant companies, Siemens and SAP announced their partnership to deliver integrated...

15 November, 2017

Many years ago, I had a customer who asked me to develop “one button” data management application. I made a...

22 December, 2015

Information and process silos. For manufacturing organizations silos is a problem that slows down innovation and enterprise software efficiency regardless on...

8 July, 2011

Apple isn’t cool.. Got your attention? Okay… Today is two years, since I switched my everyday life to MacBook. It...

19 October, 2018

Agreement is a hard when it comes to PLM. Ask 3 people about what is PLM and you most probably...

Blogroll

To the top