1. Home

Bill of process

For industries in which product complexity is increasing and lot or batch size is decreasing, integrated bills of process (BOP) have become imperative for cost-competitive manufacturing operations.

What is bill of process?

A bill of process (BOP) details the planned production approach for a specific product. It presents a best practices template for manufacturing each finished good. The bill of process lists production line configurations, tools, machines, and equipment needed to make the product. The bill of process also contains the electronic work instructions (EWI) that explain how to make it. bill of process information complements the manufacturing BOM (MBOM), or manufacturing bill of materials, which lists the materials and components needed to make the product.

Prior to the development of product lifecycle management (PLM) software, the bill of process was generated manually on paper or in isolated electronic documents. Any changes to a product and/or its manufacturing processes necessitated manual updating of the bill of process, manufacturing bill of materials, and electronic work instructions – an inefficient and error-prone process that lacked both visibility and scalability.

Modern PLM systems generate a bill of process within integrated manufacturing process planning software. This integrated capability allows changes to be reflected in the bill of process rapidly – and communicated immediately to the shop floor for implementation. The bill of process communicates the production plan to the manufacturing operations management (MOM) solution, especially the manufacturing execution system (MES), to guide and orchestrate the implementation of the plan.

Related products: Teamcenter Easy Plan | Tecnomatix

bill-of-process-teamcenter-easy-plan-screenshot-cropped-promo-640x480

Understand the benefits

An integrated bill of process enables manufacturers to reuse standardized best practices and adjust them based on plant-level requirements, leading to greater productivity and reduced operational costs.

Ensure engineering and manufacturing stay in sync

Collaborate on bill of process between functional domains to ensure key stakeholders are working to the right data at the right time.

Accelerate new product introductions (NPIs)

Standardize and reuse manufacturing processes in the bill of process across multiple plants.

Ensure accurate and efficient change management

Ensure full traceability and visibility of the product, manufacturing knowledge and bill of process throughout change processes.

How bill of process software works

The bill of process reflects close collaboration between engineering, manufacturing, and execution through manufacturing process planning software within a company’s PLM solution. Manufacturers use the PLM’s workflow, change management, and configuration capabilities to create the bill of process. The PLM also enables process planners to standardize and reuse manufacturing processes in the bill of process across multiple plants.

Manufacturing and assembly planning software tools enable users to create processes and operations with the bill of process to represent the sequence of steps in their assembly plans. They can assign relevant parts and assemblies from the manufacturing bill of materials to specific operations, along with tools and resources from the bill of equipment (BOE) or through a library of classified objects. When creating or maintaining a bill of process, the user can:

  • Reuse existing rules and templates
  • Use a logical part assignment command to assign parts that will be consumed in different operations automatically
  • Use an auto-completion tool to reference parts, resources, and visual aids that will populate electronic work instructions
  • Generate plant-specific bills of process from the product bill of process
  • Trace commands between plant bills of process and the product bill of process
  • Update the product bill of process to reflect any design changes
  • Automatically perform an accountability check of processes and workstations affected by each change and address identified conflicts

These functions result in full traceability and visibility of the bill of process throughout a product’s engineering, manufacturing and design evolution. A bill of process built on manufacturing process planning software allows the manufacturer to leverage existing product and process information, share cross-departmental workflows, capture shop floor feedback, and manage changes effectively.

Explore bill of process related products

Start with a free trial

Screen capture of Teamcenter Assembly Planner

Teamcenter Easy Plan trial

Leverage a complete set of intuitive, web-based capabilities to create and manage the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM) and the bill of process (BOP).

Learn more

Manufacturing blogs

Follow trends and best practices.

Manufacturing process planning software

See how you can deliver better manufacturing process plans.