A project-specific bill of materials framework for material management and cost control in engineer to order environments

Traditional MRP systems struggle with the high customisation and variability of Engineer to Order (ETO) environments, where predefined Bills of Materials (BoMs) are often impractical. They are generally time-consuming to develop and rarely reusable across future projects. A review of the existing literature identifies several unmet needs in ETO contexts, including poor traceability of materials, inefficient information exchange, limited process integration, and limited project-specific cost reporting. To address these challenges, the study introduces a comprehensive framework based on the Integrated Definition (IDEF) graphical modelling method. This approach captures the unique characteristics of each business process involved in materials management, proposing an alternative framework that ensures material traceability and cost monitoring without relying on fixed, pre-defined BoMs. The proposed framework allows companies to define and track material requests, purchases, and consumption throughout the production of highly customised products. It supports complete traceability, enables accurate product revisions and maintenance, and improves control over project costs. To validate the framework, a software tool based on a relational database was developed, and a pilot case study was subsequently conducted within an ETO company specialising in the production of electric components, demonstrating the practical applicability and benefits of the framework.