BOMs away
Quoting parts before the BOM exists.
In most ERP setups, purchasing can't act on a part until it has an item-master number and shows up on a released bill of materials. Engineering, reasonably, won't release the BOM until the design is done. Put those two rules together and every long-lead part — the casting, the gearmotor, the custom board — waits in line behind the slowest part of the design. The quoting clock doesn't start until the design clock stops.
Everyone who has lived this knows the workaround: an engineer emails purchasing a description and a screenshot, purchasing quotes it off the books, and the numbers live in a spreadsheet until the BOM finally releases — at which point someone re-keys everything and hopes the quote still matches the revision. The work happens early either way. The system just refuses to know about it.
If you're big enough, this is solved
SAP's engineer-to-order flow has advance procurement: long-lead components get planned and ordered off project activities while the BOM is still being built. PLM suites like Windchill and Arena approach it from the other side, with supplier-management modules that pull sourcing into the design phase and hand a released BOM to the ERP afterward.
Both work. Both also assume a software stack — and an implementation budget — that most small and mid-size manufacturers don't have. If you're running a mid-market ERP with no PLM layer, the practical advice you'll get is "release the BOM in phases," which mostly relocates the problem.
The pattern: a staging parts table
The fix I've built is one addition to the system: a parts table that sits ahead of the item master.
While the design is still moving, an engineer submits a part request to it — a temporary part number, enough spec to quote, an estimated quantity, and a need-by date. Purchasing owns the queue on the other side: it pulls new requests, sends RFQs, and attaches quotes directly to the request. Nothing in the item master or the BOM changes. Engineering keeps designing; purchasing starts quoting.
The point of the temporary number is that it makes the request a real record instead of an email. Quotes, supplier contacts, and lead times accumulate on it the same way they would on a real part — because it's about to become one.
Reconciliation is what makes it a system
The staging table earns its keep at BOM release, when every staged part has to resolve one of three ways:
- Released The design ships with the part. It gets renamed to its official item-master number — PRE-0042 becomes 10-2244 — and the quote history carries over. Purchasing can cut the PO the day the BOM releases, because the quoting happened weeks ago.
- Matched The duplicate check finds an existing item-master part that fits. The request merges into it instead of creating a twin part number. Without this check, the staging table would quietly breed duplicates — the failure mode that turns a helpful side table into a second, worse item master.
- Dropped The design moved on and the part isn't needed. The request closes and its quote history is archived — which sounds like a consolation prize until the next design needs a similar part and the pricing is already sitting there.
What it takes
This isn't a big build. A table, a submission form, a purchasing queue, and a reconciliation step wired into the ERP's item master. The hard part is workflow design, not code: who owns the queue, what counts as "enough spec to quote," and what happens on each of the three exits. Get those right and the calendar math does the rest — quoting moves inside the design window, and the PO goes out at release instead of weeks after it.
This is the kind of workflow I build: custom dashboards and workflows on top of the ERP and MRP systems that already run your business. If purchasing at your shop is waiting on BOM releases to start quoting, I'd be glad to talk — [email protected].