Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering, School of Advanced Technologies

Developing a bill of material for a product having many optional features is certainly a cumbersome task. If a separate BOM were used for each unique end product, the file size would be too big and difficult to maintain. The solution to this problem is the modular bill of materials. This study concerns about modular bill of materials and process bill of materials. Modular bill of material, which is used for improvement of material planning, as the result the demand for modules can be forecasted separately with much more accuracy than the final configurations. Process bill of materials, which is used for delivery of components to the process in order to supply right components to the right production point, as the result, reduce the complexity and lessen the production time of the production department. Computer aided design (CAD) and manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) are two major basic paiis, which exist in manufacturing. The Part Master Record (PMR) and the Bill of Materials (BOM) information, which are common to CAD and MRP II systems. This information is entered into the MRP II system manually. The entire process is extremely time consuming and error prone. This study aims to solve the problem through integration between CAD-MRP II systems, to achieve accurate and timely exchange of information between CAD and MRP II. The use of paper for information transfer could be virtually eliminated.