What is a Production BOM in Business Central?

A production BOM is the certified list of components and quantities needed to make one unit of a manufactured item in Business Central.

A production BOM has a header, which defines the unit of measure the quantities refer to and the certification status, and lines that list what goes into the product. Each line carries a type, a component number, a quantity per, an optional scrap percentage and an optional routing link code. A line can be another production BOM, which lets you nest sub assemblies instead of flattening everything into one list.

Search with Alt+Q for Production BOM to open the list, then open a card to edit header and lines. The BOM is attached to the item it produces through the Production BOM No. field on the Replenishment FastTab of the item card. A BOM must be set to Certified before a production order can use it, and versions with their own starting date can be created from the card when the recipe changes over time.

Production BOM MG-1000 describes one mountain bike: 1 unit of FRAME-01, 2 units of WHEEL-02 with 2 percent scrap, and 1 unit of SADDLE-03. A production order for 25 bikes therefore explodes into 25 frames, 51 wheels and 25 saddles. If WHEEL-02 itself has a production BOM and appears as a component line of type item, it is consumed as a stocked part rather than exploded further.

The classic mistakes are leaving the status at New or Under Development, in which case refreshing a production order stops with a status error instead of creating the component lines, and editing a certified BOM in place instead of creating a version, which silently changes the recipe for future orders without any trace of the old one. Mismatched units of measure between the BOM line and the component item lead to quantities that are out by a factor of the conversion. Missing routing link codes mean every component is flushed at the first operation, which makes work in process figures look wrong on long routings.

When you run standard costing, recalculate the standard cost after any BOM change so that the rolled up material cost reflects the new components. Keeping one BOM version per effective date is also what makes it possible to explain, months later, why an old production order consumed different parts.

Frequently asked questions

Related terms

• Production Order, A production order is the Business Central document that plans and records the manufacture of a quantity of an item, from component consumption to finished output.
• Routing, A routing is the ordered list of operations, work or machine centers and times that Business Central uses to schedule and cost the manufacture of an item.
• Assembly Order, A lightweight order type in Business Central that combines components into a finished item using an assembly BOM, without the full manufacturing module.
• Unit of Measure, A unit of measure is the code, such as PCS or BOX, in which an item quantity is expressed; each item has one base unit that all inventory entries are stored in.
• Item Ledger Entry, An item ledger entry is the record Business Central creates for each posted quantity movement of an item: receipts, shipments, transfers and adjustments.

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