The manual says that a kit bom will be exploded at picking. Does this actually work and if so, are there any special set up requirements?

I've looked at the community modules around this area and will have to do some development to be able to modify at sales order but still keep as a reference back to the source kit, but would be nice to know what should be working.

Thanks

Hi Kevin,

I invite you to check out the module assembly_bom in the LP:openerp-usa.
This module was designed specifically to handle selling/management of Sales Kits.
Assembly BOM's were previously listed in the OpenERP documentation as a feature - but when I mentioned that doc was incorrect and reported it as an error (documentation did represent relality) under a support agreement the documentation was modified. We added this assembly_bom module to bring back proper kitting - and are hoping OpenERP adopts our merge proposal into base 6.1 for his well needed feature.

The use case definition is this:
A company (e.g. a retail distributor) sells Kits - which are made up of various products
in multiple combinations - which are pulled together at time of picking (including service instruction sheets) and boxed at time of picking (not intended to go through a manufacturing operation - but rather just a picking activity. These are defined by a new BOM type "Assembly". Usually the sub-products themselves are sold separately, or in a kit.

Our client also wanted to be able to answer the question: where was a specific product consumed?
e.g. As a part of Kit A, Kit B, sold separate, etc. We saw this as critical to helping in the procurement forecasting area.

Config
This module creates a new BoM type named Assembly.
Users define their Sales Kits - using the same BoM definition activity.
This allows companies to manage their Kits as BoMs - which is how they should be managed in our scenario - and then the appropriate accounting and picking entries are made to keep accurate track of inventory.

This was built on top of 6.0.x.

I hope that helps lead you in the right direction. I'd be curious to hear your feedback and whether your USE CASE fits the module or is different.

Thanks - I'll download and have a play.

My clients requirements are a bit more complex - they import parts which are then assembled into a finished product. They have multi-layer BOM's.

My current thinking is to use manufacturing orders which work quite well apart from some accounting issues.

Assuming the client proceeds (which looks highly likely) they will want a landed cost module with integration back into BOM's, plus an asset management system also integrated back into the BOM's, so will definitely have some development to do.