Optimizing Your Fastener BOM for 2024 and Beyond

With new technologies and processes addressing changing manufacturing and regulatory environments, optimizing your fasteners is one key aspect to modernizing production.

In this blog, we will explore:

• Emerging trends in fasteners
• Importance of an accurate fastener BOM
• Strategies to optimize your fastener BOM

Emerging Trends in Fasteners

Across industries there is an increasing demand for eco-friendly fasteners and components. For example, the automotive industry is increasingly moving towards sustainability – nearly one in five cars sold in 2023 was an electric vehicle (EV). Therefore, to match industry demands and stay on course with net-zero targets, you could aim to source fasteners from eco-friendly manufacturers.

There is also a rise in carbon neutral regulations coming into effect across the world. The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the United States Carbon Border Adjustment are just two examples of regulations where tariffs are imposed on certain goods to prevent carbon leakage. The rise in these regulations will have an impact on fasteners due to the materials they are made from (steel, aluminum, etc.). These regulations are likely to give you food for thought on acquiring fasteners from onshore and nearshore facilities.

In addition to an increasing focus on sustainable fasteners, there’s also a demand for quick assembly fasteners. Quick assembly fasteners are gaining popularity due to the rise of automated manufacturing processes, as OEMs strive to enhance their efficiencies and reduce assembly time.

Importance of an Accurate Fastener BOM

The process of bringing a product from concept to market can be elevated by having an accurate BOM throughout the production lifecycle.

BOMs answer questions about materials, parts, quantities and assembly – questions likely to be brought up when you are trying to establish how you can reduce costs during production. Furthermore, these are conversations that come from various teams such as engineering or purchasing and even operations. Your teams will likely work from the same BOM, therefore the more accurate and detailed the data you use, the more likely our teams will find ways to further reduce costs.

Another important reason to ensure your fastener BOM is as accurate as possible is the fact that it can help improve your inventory management. An accurate fastener BOM allows you greater precision when tracking the fasteners used in production. As a result, you’re more likely to prevent shortages and overstock situations, thus minimizing the chance of delays in production due to any fasteners missing on the shop floor.

The best way to ensure the right fasteners are used in the right applications for your products is through an accurate fastener BOM. It’s crucial that the correct parts and components are used to ensure the structural integrity and safety of what you produce. Compiling and maintaining an accurate fastener BOM will help you adhere to industry standards and reduce the risk of using incorrect or substandard fasteners that may compromise the quality of your products.

Overall, an accurate fastener BOM is an essential tool that can greatly support your resource allocation efficiency, cost management and maintain high-quality output throughout production.

It can be a daunting task to amend and improve your current fastener BOMs, however at Optimas we have the experts to help you deliver the BOM your teams need.

We helped save £400k in the first year for an automotive partner with a reduced BOM for a new product platform. Click here to read how our experts were able to execute this project that reduced obsolescence, streamlined and defined fastener policy all whilst reducing costs.

Strategies to Optimize Your Fastener BOM

Two vital aspects to optimize your fastener BOM that can often be overlooked are collaboration and communication. Engineering, procurement and production will need to successfully collaborate to help ensure the accuracy of your fastener BOM, as well as prevent unnecessary purchases, thus increasing costs. If these teams can communicate and work together successfully and efficiently, the better your BOM will be.

A growing topic across all industries, AI is certainly a tool that can help you optimize your fastener BOM. Using the correct software, AI is capable of organizing and managing your BOM, and can even detect errors too. However, it is important to note that before implementing such software into your operations, make sure the data being pulled by AI is already clean to minimize any risks.

In addition to managing your BOM for you, AI tools available have the capabilities to further analyze your current costs and suggest alternatives to help reduce costs that do not compromise your quality.

There are a number of other ways AI can enhance BOM efficiencies such as assessing risks or even selecting suppliers to optimize your supply chain. But ultimately, leveraging AI can ensure your fastener BOM is detailed and becomes an integral part of your processes.

Contact Optimas to Optimize Your Fastener BOM

Our partners rely on us for our expertise in sourcing, manufacturing and tech-enabled inventory management solutions.  If you’re looking for support in creating a better BOM process, let us know here so one of our experts can start a discussion and see how we can help improve your productivity and profits.

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