Comments on: Bill of Materials and Open Questions http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/ New Rules for a New IT World Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:59:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7-beta3 hourly 1 By: Ismael Ghalimi http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-716516 Ismael Ghalimi Wed, 23 Jan 2008 19:41:37 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-716516 Rob, Thank you so much for sharing such a wealth of experience. Much appreciated. -Ismael Rob,

Thank you so much for sharing such a wealth of experience.

Much appreciated.

-Ismael

]]> By: Rob Campbell http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-714346 Rob Campbell Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:56:09 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-714346 I'm a consulting mechanical engineer with an interest in all things Web 2.0, as I build a geographically distributed engineering team that provides exceptional value to often geographically dispersed customers. So IT|Redux and the approach to developing the Redux Model 1 are especially interesting to me. Spreadsheets are far from ideal for maintaining Bills of Materials. Data duplication will cause endless problems and you'll waste days -- if not weeks -- maintaining them as complexity grows, and you'll still never be confident in their accuracy. Been there, done that. If ever a problem cried out for a relational database solution, it's Bill of Material (BOM) and Approved Vendor List (AVL) maintenance. I currently use an inexpensive offline application, Parts & Vendors (P&V), that my team and customers can access via SSL VPN. But there are at least two solutions that would satisfy most Web 2.0 definitions: aligni.com & arenasolutions.com. If you Google P&V, aligni is likely to come up as an ad. It positions itself as an online alternative to P&V. Unfortunately, it does not have P&V's exceptional ease of use (P&V is focused on the product development team, and I've never seen a more efficient or powerful interface from this point of view) or its capabilities. I'm sure aligni's capabilities will increase rapidly, but the interface is pretty god-awful and I don't see much promise for the near future. Aligni has a range of price plans and a thirty day trial. The terms of service are a little scary. Upon cancellation, they may delete any data permanently. You can cancel your account, of course (hopefully not too easily, with the potential for data loss), but so may "Aligni Incorporated... terminate the contract at any time and with immediate effect for good or important reason." One of those reasons is that the "invoice amount due cannot be charged to the credit card account provided." That's a little scary: lose all of your data permanently because you didn't keep sufficient funds in the account linked to your debit card. The other alternative is Arena PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) from arenasolutions.com. This is a professional application with excellent capabilities and a very nice interface. The cost is also significant enough that it isn't for hobbyists, but it isn't expensive. A single user account is $1200/year. You may have an unlimited number of named accounts, but only as many may be active as you have accounts (so if people rotated in and out of your project, you could activate and deactivate their logins as required). I believe there is a less expensive Workgroup edition, but they will try hard to upsell you to at least the Professional edition. There is also an Enterprise edition. A very nice feature is that you may have unlimited partner logins for vendors, customers, and others. They may access the database but won't have data creation privileges. This provides 95% of what you need for outsourcing and quoting. If another user has their own paid Arena account, they could be granted write access at no expense to you. I came very close to investing in Arena Solutions, but decided the more-expensive, less-web-2.0 hosted Agile Advantage application is better suited to my needs. Arena is perfect for an OEM working with multiple suppliers and partners. Agile is better suited for someone like me, a partner working with multiple OEMs. But I can't yet afford to invest in Agile. Let me know if I can do anything to help or provide any advice (or opinion). Good luck. Sincerely, -Rob Campbell I’m a consulting mechanical engineer with an interest in all things Web 2.0, as I build a geographically distributed engineering team that provides exceptional value to often geographically dispersed customers. So IT|Redux and the approach to developing the Redux Model 1 are especially interesting to me.

Spreadsheets are far from ideal for maintaining Bills of Materials. Data duplication will cause endless problems and you’ll waste days — if not weeks — maintaining them as complexity grows, and you’ll still never be confident in their accuracy. Been there, done that. If ever a problem cried out for a relational database solution, it’s Bill of Material (BOM) and Approved Vendor List (AVL) maintenance.

I currently use an inexpensive offline application, Parts & Vendors (P&V), that my team and customers can access via SSL VPN. But there are at least two solutions that would satisfy most Web 2.0 definitions: aligni.com & arenasolutions.com.

If you Google P&V, aligni is likely to come up as an ad. It positions itself as an online alternative to P&V. Unfortunately, it does not have P&V’s exceptional ease of use (P&V is focused on the product development team, and I’ve never seen a more efficient or powerful interface from this point of view) or its capabilities. I’m sure aligni’s capabilities will increase rapidly, but the interface is pretty god-awful and I don’t see much promise for the near future.

Aligni has a range of price plans and a thirty day trial. The terms of service are a little scary. Upon cancellation, they may delete any data permanently. You can cancel your account, of course (hopefully not too easily, with the potential for data loss), but so may “Aligni Incorporated… terminate the contract at any time and with immediate effect for good or important reason.” One of those reasons is that the “invoice amount due cannot be charged to the credit card account provided.” That’s a little scary: lose all of your data permanently because you didn’t keep sufficient funds in the account linked to your debit card.

The other alternative is Arena PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) from arenasolutions.com. This is a professional application with excellent capabilities and a very nice interface. The cost is also significant enough that it isn’t for hobbyists, but it isn’t expensive. A single user account is $1200/year. You may have an unlimited number of named accounts, but only as many may be active as you have accounts (so if people rotated in and out of your project, you could activate and deactivate their logins as required). I believe there is a less expensive Workgroup edition, but they will try hard to upsell you to at least the Professional edition. There is also an Enterprise edition.

A very nice feature is that you may have unlimited partner logins for vendors, customers, and others. They may access the database but won’t have data creation privileges. This provides 95% of what you need for outsourcing and quoting. If another user has their own paid Arena account, they could be granted write access at no expense to you.

I came very close to investing in Arena Solutions, but decided the more-expensive, less-web-2.0 hosted Agile Advantage application is better suited to my needs. Arena is perfect for an OEM working with multiple suppliers and partners. Agile is better suited for someone like me, a partner working with multiple OEMs. But I can’t yet afford to invest in Agile.

Let me know if I can do anything to help or provide any advice (or opinion). Good luck.

Sincerely,
-Rob Campbell

]]> By: Ismael Ghalimi http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-490829 Ismael Ghalimi Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:38:10 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-490829 Doron, Antoine, I think you're right, we don't need the vibrator. I'm not sure about audio in/out and loudspeaker and microphone. Having them is handy, but not having them would make the design a lot cleaner... Give me a couple of days to figure this one out. -Ismael Doron, Antoine,

I think you’re right, we don’t need the vibrator.

I’m not sure about audio in/out and loudspeaker and microphone.

Having them is handy, but not having them would make the design a lot cleaner…

Give me a couple of days to figure this one out.

-Ismael

]]> By: Ismael Ghalimi http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-490824 Ismael Ghalimi Fri, 05 Oct 2007 22:35:24 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-490824 Bob, Thanks for the feedback. I think we'll go for a button-free device. See tomorrow's post. -Ismael Bob,

Thanks for the feedback.

I think we’ll go for a button-free device. See tomorrow’s post.

-Ismael

]]> By: Antoine http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-490496 Antoine Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:09:31 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-490496 A vibrator is cool for games, otherwise I don't see a use for it, as Doron stated it. A vibrator is cool for games, otherwise I don’t see a use for it, as Doron stated it.

]]> By: Doron T. http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-490424 Doron T. Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:35:44 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-490424 Regarding the vibrator, since it won't fit into the pocket, people would probably keep it very close to them while not using it, not even for reading. So maybe just having a flashing light to signal incoming mail, or other similar activities could be more useful then a vibrator. If the device is in someone's bag, neither light nor a vibrator would help them get notification, unless you use a loudspeaker, which I think you said you won't. So that leaves you with just a light signal. You can also use software to broadcast audio messages to a Bluetooth earphone/cell phone. Regarding the vibrator, since it won’t fit into the pocket, people would probably keep it very close to them while not using it, not even for reading. So maybe just having a flashing light to signal incoming mail, or other similar activities could be more useful then a vibrator.

If the device is in someone’s bag, neither light nor a vibrator would help them get notification, unless you use a loudspeaker, which I think you said you won’t. So that leaves you with just a light signal. You can also use software to broadcast audio messages to a Bluetooth earphone/cell phone.

]]> By: Bob Urry http://itredux.com/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/comment-page-1/#comment-490330 Bob Urry Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:24:12 +0000 http://itredux.com/blog/2007/10/05/bill-of-materials-and-open-questions/#comment-490330 Or you could hold the Home button down for a couple of seconds to tell it to switch off. My Dell Axim's On/Off button has 2 functions (4 if you consider illumination). Quick press is On/Off. Press and hold toggles the display backlight. Have you had time to consider the accessibility issues? I know that you are building for a limited audience, but I would hope that eventually this sort of device would have a much broader audience. Cheers -Bob Or you could hold the Home button down for a couple of seconds to tell it to switch off. My Dell Axim’s On/Off button has 2 functions (4 if you consider illumination). Quick press is On/Off. Press and hold toggles the display backlight.

Have you had time to consider the accessibility issues? I know that you are building for a limited audience, but I would hope that eventually this sort of device would have a much broader audience.

Cheers
 -Bob

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