What is a Bill of Materials (BOM) and How to Create One

Creating a bill of materials (BOM) is an essential part of the scaffolding planning and bid process. With the high cost of labor, a well-prepared BOM ensures your business has all the materials and components required to construct a scaffold and avoids expensive delays.

Why is a bill of materials so essential? For starters, it helps you prevent common pitfalls such as inventory inaccuracies, material wastage, and costly construction delays. These challenges not only waste resources but can also harm your bottom line and reputation. A well-prepared BOM allows you to work efficiently, saving both time and money, while ensuring that projects are completed on schedule.

In this article, we’ll explore:

• What a bill of materials is and why it matters in scaffolding projects.
• How accurate BOM preparation contributes to project success.
• How to leverage software to improve bill of materials management, accuracy, and efficiency.

By using the right tools and techniques, you can ensure that your scaffold designs integrate seamlessly with precise and reliable BOMs. This allows your business to deliver high-quality scaffolding solutions to customers in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Whether you’re new to the process or looking to improve your workflows, this guide will provide actionable insights to help you create a bill of materials with ease. Stay tuned to learn how software solutions can transform your BOM management process and elevate your scaffolding projects.

What Is a Bill of Materials (BOM)?

A BOM is a detailed list of all materials and components needed to construct a scaffold. This includes the quantity of parts, total weight/volume, and netting area based on the design of your scaffold. It is the foremost step in building a scaffold.

With a reliable BOM, it is easier for your company to plan material purchases, estimate costs, manage inventory and shipments, and minimize production delays and waste. Although creating a BOM seems straightforward, accuracy is critical to ensure smooth operations, especially with complex scaffold designs.

Who Creates a BOM?

In the scaffolding industry, the responsibility of preparing a Bill of Materials can fall to several individuals such as supervisor, contracts manager, designer, or engineer.

What to Include in a BOM?

An effective BOM requires specific and detailed information. Missing or inaccurate data can cause costly delays during scaffold erection that then impact an entire project.

Essential BOM Elements:

1. Part Number: Unique identification codes for each part.
2. Description: Detailed descriptions to help differentiate similar components.
3. Quantity: Number of parts used in each assembly or subassembly.
4. Unit of Measure: Standard units (e.g., lbs, kg, ft, m) for shipment planning.

The Importance of Creating a Bill of Materials in Scaffolding Projects

The BOM ensures that all required materials and components are planned for, minimizing delays and budget overruns. Additionally, it gives stakeholders transparency as they know what items are needed during different stages of construction.

Inventory management and purchasing teams also need BOMs so they can purchase the right materials at the right time, reducing unnecessary waste. Plus, precise BOMs are an important part of inventory management.

Best Practices for Creating a Bill of Materials

1. Establish a Part Numbering System

Give each part a unique identifier.

• Sequential System: Simple but not human-readable (e.g., 001514 for a screw).

• Intelligent System: Includes part type in the identifier (e.g., SCRW1014 for a screw). While easier to understand, it requires careful categorization as your library grows.

2. Document and Control BOM Revisions

A BOM evolves throughout a project’s life. Always update and version-control your BOM when changes occur. 

• Maintain a revision history if the scaffold design and BOM change.

• Lock the finalized BOM version before assembly begins.

3. Leverage BOM Management Software

Manually preparing and managing BOMs is time-consuming and prone to errors. Use bill of materials management software or supply chain and inventory management solutions to create, update, and maintain a BOM. These tools help centralize information, streamline collaboration, and ensure accuracy across the entire process.

4. Standardize with Templates

Use software to create a BOM template with standardized fields and branding (e.g., your company logo). Sharing a template ensures consistency across your organization. 

Understanding the Bill of Materials Management Process

BOM management is not just about creating the list—it’s a continuous process of maintenance, updates, and accuracy checks, such as verifying part quantities, ensuring consistent naming conventions, cross-referencing material specifications, and validating cost estimates against procurement data. This supports production planning, resource allocation, and operational efficiency.

Key Steps for Effective BOM Management:

• Implement formal change control procedures, such as requiring written change requests.
• Revise BOMs if the scaffold design changes.
• Standardize naming conventions to reduce confusion.
• Audit cost estimates periodically to ensure your data is accurate and reliable.

Investing in proper BOM management ensures seamless production planning, better resource utilization, and improved project outcomes.

Create Accurate BOMs with Avontus Designer®

Many organizations still rely on spreadsheets for Bill of Materials (BOM) management, but manual parts counting and using spreadsheets are prone to errors and lack integration capabilities. To overcome these limitations, adopting bill of materials management software such as Avontus Designer is a smart and effective solution for creating and managing BOMs.

Key Features of Avontus Designer:

• Instantly generate a BOM from your scaffold design.
• Add or modify BOM quantities and precisely measure various scaffold metrics.
• Customize your Material Master database based on your inventory or the materials available from your suppliers.
• Export your BOM to Quantify® inventory management software to create an estimate and shipment.

With Avontus Designer, managing your Bill of Materials becomes faster, more reliable, and highly efficient.

Discover how Avontus can streamline your BOM workflows and enhance your scaffolding project outcomes today!