Looking for Excel BOM tutorial

[Silentnox]

Has anyone run across a good Excel BOM tutorial I would like to set one up for our company.

Running SW 2007.

Thanks

 

[handleman]

I doubt you'll find an Excel BOM tutorial since SW now has their own BOM. Any particular reason you're wanting to use Excel-based?

 

[Heckler]

Check this link for the assemblyBOM macro.

http://www.lennyworks.com/solidworks/default.asp?ID=20

Heckler
Sr. Mechanical Engineer
SWx 2007 SP 3.0 & Pro/E 2001
XP Pro SP2.0 P4 3.6 GHz, 1GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400
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_`\(,_
(_)/ (_)

(In reference to David Beckham) "He can't kick with his left foot, he can't tackle, he can't head the ball and he doesn't score many goals. Apart from that, he's all right." -- George Best

 

[drawoh]

Silentnox,

I did not find Excel BOMs very complicated. Most of what I have had to learn is various forms of Microsoft Excel abuse.

What do you want to do?

JHH

 

[Standing]

Silentnox,
Do not use Excel BOM’s. SolidWorks lets you use Excel BOM’s, but they do not support it. The SolidWorks table BOM’s are better and easier to use after they are setup.
The problem we had with Excel BOM’s is the equations had to be calculated after every change. Several drafters forgot to double click the BOM and the quantities did not show up. They had to be reprinted several times.


Bradley
SolidWorks Premim 2007 x64 SP3.1
PDM Works, Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Virtual memory 12577 MB, nVidia 3400

 

[Silentnox]

Well I find the solidworks version very limiting plus engineering are the only ones that can read it.
I would like to make a series of excel pages that sort the information in different ways for different people as well as interact with other spread sheets. So for purchasing I want the spread sheet to sum up all the sizes organize by type put cost next it, interact with our inventory levels and our scheduling etc etc.

For the a simple case of when you have a BOM larger then one page how do you set that up in solid works? Split the table and put it on two pages? What if you add a bunch of stuff to the first page and it bumps it off the page again?

I only took a brief look at excel BOMS and couldnt get the headings linked to solidworks formulas (They were just written in as data) and decided to ask if there was a guide here before i invested a lot of time into teaching myself how to do it.

Perhaps I should invest more time into learning the excel bom then come back with a specific question.

 

[J-C]

I think you need a custom application like a customized version of the "assembly bom" VBA macro Heckler posted a link to.

Jason

UG NX2.02.2 on Win2000 SP3
UG NX4.01.0 on Win2000 SP3
SolidWorks 2007 SP3.1 on WinXP SP2

 

[handleman]

It sounds like you want much more functionality out of the Excel-based BOM than is really available. If you want all manner of sorting, interaction, etc. the best thing to do is use the SW BOM on the drawing and then export it to a separate Excel file. Even with Excel-based BOMs, you cannot access the file outside of SolidWorks until you save it as a separate Excel file. At that point it is just that - a separate Excel file. It is no longer linked to SW, so it won't update when the drawing changes.

 

[Silentnox]

handleman hit it on the head. I do want a seperate excel file.
Sorry if that was unclear.

 

[handleman]

So you really want a tutorial on how to use Excel after you've exported the BOM out of SolidWorks?