Managing a Bill of Materials (BOM) in Excel can quickly become overwhelming—especially when dealing with multi-level assemblies. In response to viewer feedback, I’ve created an advanced Excel tool that uses VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) to explode BOMs up to five levels deep, offering a scalable and dynamic way to break down complex products into their individual components.

Whether you’re in manufacturing, engineering, or just a spreadsheet enthusiast looking to improve your BOM processes, this tool might be exactly what you need.

🔧 What Is a BOM Explosion?

If you’re not familiar with the term, a BOM (Bill of Materials) is a comprehensive list of raw materials, components, and assemblies required to construct, manufacture, or repair a product.

A BOM explosion means taking a top-level product and breaking it down into its subcomponents—sometimes recursively, depending on how many levels deep your product structure goes. This is particularly useful when you’re trying to calculate exact quantities for purchasing or production.

📊 What’s Inside the Tool?

This tool is built in Excel and includes VBA code that automates the BOM explosion process. Here’s how it works:

1. Structured BOM Sheet

• You define your main items and their respective components.
• Components can themselves be made of smaller subcomponents, up to 5 levels deep.
• The tool supports multiple products with different component trees.

2. Multi-Level Explosion Logic

• The explosion begins with a top-level item (e.g., “Dino Toy”).
• Each item is checked to see if it has subcomponents.
• If it does, the VBA code automatically pulls in the next level of components and calculates final required quantities based on BOM structure.
• This repeats up to five levels—though the code can be adjusted to go deeper if needed.

3. Quantity Calculations

• The final quantity is calculated by multiplying the quantities across the levels.
• For example, if a Dino Toy uses 1 Body, which includes 2 Engines, and each Engine needs 10 Brushes, then for 5 Dino Toys you’ll need 100 Brushes.

4. Summary Sheet

• Uses Excel’s VSTACK, FILTER, UNIQUE, and SUMIF functions to consolidate exploded components into a neat, final list of required quantities.

💡 Key Excel Functions Used

• UNIQUE: To dynamically create dropdown lists of available products.
• FILTER: To retrieve component breakdowns based on selected products.
• COUNTIF: To determine if a component needs to be further exploded.
• SUMIF: To aggregate total required quantities for each unique component.
• VSTACK: To combine data from multiple levels into a single column for easy analysis.

💻 Behind the Scenes: VBA Magic

The VBA macro does all the heavy lifting:

• Clears old data before running.
• Explodes each level iteratively.
• Copies dynamically calculated ranges to the right location.
• Supports branching (i.e., multiple components per item) and recursion.
• Runs fast, thanks to turning off screen updates and smart row calculations.

The code is designed with flexibility in mind, so you can scale it or tweak it to suit your workflow.

🚀 Real-World Use Cases

• Manufacturing: Quickly determine required raw materials for large production batches.
• Engineering: Validate component dependencies in complex assemblies.
• Procurement: Understand purchasing needs in advance and avoid shortages.
• Inventory Planning: Plan stock levels based on multi-level assembly demand.

🎁 Get the File

📺 Watch the Full Tutorial

🙌 Final Thoughts

This tool was built based on your comments and feedback, and I’m always excited to create solutions that make your workflow smoother. If you enjoyed the video or found the tool helpful:

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Your support helps me keep creating awesome Excel content. Thanks for reading!