Been working on a new library management tool for businesses: KiFive -
Features
- Material Management
- BOM Management
–> Nested/Structured Assemblies
- Component Management
- Schematic Symbol Management
- Footprint Management
Schematic symbols can be reused across multiple components (1 resistor symbol, used in multiple components)
Component information is driven from material information (MPN, MFG, Datasheet, Description, Etc is managed outside of KiCAD Part)
I’ll be releasing the alpha version later this week for a few people to start testing- after its a little more stable i’ll publish the beta version.
If you have comments/suggestions, please feel free to let me know.
Cheers!
List of Materials:
Creating a new Material:
List of Symbols:
New Symbol:
Import every unique symbol in a LIB file:
List of components:
Component Details:
Footprint Index:
Creating a new FP:
Nested BOMs:
6 Likes
Hey, I’m sure you’ve noticed lots of chatter on the Forum talking about tools like this! If you get to the point where a single click can either expand, or collapse, a nested Parts List I’ll be truly impressed!
A significant omission (at least significant to me) from your sample screenshots is the lack of reference designators. The “List of Materials” (which I have always called the “Parts List”, or P/L) in particular needs a way to associate a purchased physical component, with its functional representation on the schematic, and a physical location on the circuit board assembly. It wouldn’t hurt to also put a “Reference Designator(s)” column on the BOM, either.
To help locate information in the reports, assigning a number to each line may be helpful. Being able to say, for example, “Line Item 43 should now be the part from XYZ Company rather than ABC Company.” improves the efficiency of communication within an organization.
Eventually, being able to do both global, and restricted, searches will be useful. For example, answering the question “How many different assemblies use P/N 54-3210?” but I appreciate that’s still a ways off.
Keep up the good work!
Dale
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Hi Dale,
Thanks for the feedback. I wholeheartedly agree 
- just probably didn’t communicate well. The “List of Materials” is just an index of every material (part/document) in the database. If you click on an item it will take you to a BOM for that item. See the “Nested BOMs” image. Here we have every item listed in the assembly, by item/line number, PN, Description, Qty, and the Item Text - which is where i plan to put reference designators, or other line specific information.
Additionally, in the nested bom’s page- the application already does a “where used” search. Basically everything above the active part (810-268742-002) is what it is structured to (638-0000002-001 in this example), and everything below is what is structured to it. You can additionally click on each part to navigate up or down through the assemblies… Don’t have collapsing BOM’s yet… I’ll need to study my JQuery a little more before i can do anything like that 
Also have search for PN/Description if you want to query your DB.
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