{"id":16384,"date":"2023-09-19T12:21:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T16:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/?p=16384"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:59:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:59:04","slug":"teamcenter-color-bom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/teamcenter-color-bom\/","title":{"rendered":"How to solve the color complexity puzzle in product engineering?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Color BOM automation in Teamcenter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Product personalization is a key factor in enabling manufacturers to capture market share and expand in extremely competitive environments. Market demands are pushing these manufacturers to compress development time and go to market faster, as seen across industries from aerospace to automotive to consumer goods alike. Every manufacturer has undertaken some form of digital transformation initiatives and are refining their product development processes to achieve this goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:38px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Digital transformation begins with managing complexity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Digital transformation starts with a robust solution that can efficiently manage product complexity and eliminate manual processes. The way to achieve this is by <a href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/solutions\/product-configuration-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">managing product variability<\/a> in terms of parts and <a href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/solutions\/bom-bill-of-materials-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bill of materials<\/a>. Manufacturers are looking to leverage knowledge-driven system automation where possible to manage product and part variability and shift their focus to engineering better products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:28px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Managing complexity in terms of color and appearance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>While there are <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/rulestream-configure-complex-products\/\">many avenues to implement automation<\/a> to improve overall product development process, one area manufacturers can focus on is managing product and part complexity in terms of color and appearance variability. The problems that manufacturers face today with managing color and appearance complexity is duplication of parts, limited to no reuse, and scattered information. Information about the part\u2019s color and appearance is often maintained in spreadsheets, leading to change management challenges. If the number of color variations offered is high, tracking and managing change processes can be a significant driver of increased costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:43px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Utilizing \u2018generic\u2019 and \u2018less-finish\u2019 parts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The PLM solutions in <a href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Teamcenter <\/a>are best suited to help manufacturers avoid this by implementing efficient change management processes and enabling engineering to complete product development on a \u201cgeneric part\u201d representation (aka., less-finish or uncolored part) with all the necessary technical and functional specifications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By leveraging Teamcenter\u2019s product configuration and bill of materials automation capabilities, manufacturers can leverage knowledge-driven system automation to auto-generate buildable combinations based on marketing features and constraints. This eliminates the need to manually compute and create parts for each color and appearance combination, a process that is prone to error when product complexity is high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:33px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Orchestrating automated, lifecycle-controlled color rules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>With Color BOM automation, engineers along with configuration specialists can analyze system generated buildable combinations and make informed decisions based on expected market penetration and volumes. They can also associate the combinations as \u201ccolor rules\u201d to the generic parts and leverage system automation to manage color part explosion automatically. As all the artifacts are lifecycle controlled, changes in product direction, design or engineering can be easily tracked and orchestrated so every impacted color part variant is automatically kept up to date. This will help engineering teams to shift their focus on continuous product improvement and less on managing color part explosion manually in an offline spreadsheets or disconnected systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The potential of this system automation in Teamcenter also opens the doors for other stakeholders in the organization to leverage single source of truth with respect to product\u2019s bill of materials to perform a solve for any buildable configuration and visualize an accurate parts list including color parts in real-time. Applying high-end visual rendering\u2020 materials to the resolved color parts can help analyze color combinations before it is ever produced as well as help with generating marketing collateral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s much to look forward with bill of materials management capabilities of Teamcenter to help organizations efficiently manage a complete product bill of materials encompassing all aspects from mechanical to electrical and electronics&nbsp;to software, and color with unified change and configuration management and end-to-end traceability across the digital thread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:39px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A brighter future with Teamcenter X<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Teamcenter X not only empowers you to create a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/business-value-of-multi-view-bom\/\">multi-domain BOM<\/a> for your products but also accelerates product development, minimizes ownership costs, and enables efficient collaboration. With automated processes, scalability, and hassle-free software management and updates provided by Siemens, you can focus on innovation and product excellence while leaving the technicalities to the experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-teal-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-teal-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-teal-color has-text-color\" style=\"font-size:25px\"><strong>Teamcenter X = full functionality PLM + benefits of the cloud<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u2714 Gain <strong>fast PLM<\/strong> <strong>access <\/strong>for all stakeholders, anytime, anywhere<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u2714 <strong>Reduce the cost<\/strong> of ownership with predictable operational expenses and minimal IT infrastructure<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u2714  <strong>Accelerate product design<\/strong> by leveraging existing knowledge to support design re-use, manage change and speed cycle time<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u2714 <strong>Streamline product development<\/strong> <strong>and manufacturing<\/strong> processes with internal and external stakeholders<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u2714 Create a multi-domain bill of materials (BOM) to <strong>visualize your entire product<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-teal-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-teal-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Are you ready to step into the world of cloud-based PLM innovation?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Discover how Siemens Digital Industries Software is revolutionizing BOM management and empowering businesses of all sizes to thrive in the era of connected, complex products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experience the transformation firsthand by registering for this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/resources.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/video-discover-saas-plm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">discover SaaS PLM webinar<\/a>&nbsp;to see how cloud is reshaping the future of PLM. Learn more about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/teamcenter-x-cloud-plm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Teamcenter X<\/a>, and try our&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trials.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenterx-cloud-plm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">free 30-day trial<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-teal-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-teal-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:21px\"><strong>Start fast and grow with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.siemens.com\/en-us\/products\/teamcenter\/teamcenter-x-cloud-plm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Teamcenter X<\/a>   |   Make smarter decisions with <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/tag\/artificial-intelligence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AI-powered PLM<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-teal-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-teal-background-color has-background is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons alignwide is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-16018d1d wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-50 is-style-fill\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-white-color has-cyan-background-color has-text-color has-background has-text-align-center has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/\" style=\"border-radius:57px;font-size:30px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Teamcenter Solutions<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button has-custom-width wp-block-button__width-50 is-style-fill\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-white-color has-cyan-background-color has-text-color has-background has-custom-font-size wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/plm.sw.siemens.com\/en-US\/teamcenter\/trials\/\" style=\"border-radius:57px;font-size:30px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>30-day trial<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to use Teamcenter Color BOM capabilities to auto-generate buildable combinations based on marketing features and constraints?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65698,"featured_media":16385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,51],"tags":[4,31449,31450,31431],"industry":[],"product":[357,22254],"coauthors":[1372],"class_list":["post-16384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-bom-management","tag-color-bom","tag-product-configuration-management","tag-variability","product-teamcenter","product-teamcenter-x"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2023\/09\/BOM_color2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65698"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16384"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16463,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16384\/revisions\/16463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16384"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=16384"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=16384"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/teamcenter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}