Reference Bills of Material

A reference bill of material is used to define a parent/component relationship that should not be used by the planning modules to calculate component requirements.  For example, you might want to create a reference bill of material to indicate that a specific tool and engineering drawing are used to make an item.  Although you want these items listed on the parent's bill of material, you do not want Master Scheduling and Requirements Planning to create manufacturing orders or purchase requisitions for them.  To accomplish this goal, you would:

·     Define the tool and drawing (using the Part Master Maintenance conversation) and assign them a part type of Reference.

·     Add the items to the bill of material, assigning each parent/component relationship a Reference Code of R.  You can use either product structure conversation to define a reference bill of material relationship.

The only way to include a reference item in a bill of material is by creating a reference parent/component relationship.  You can, however, create a reference bill of material for some other type of part.  This feature is useful for defining substitute components.  You might want the substitute to appear on the bill of material, but want the Master Scheduling and Requirements Planning applications to plan based on use of the normal component, rather than the substitute.