Bill of Materials Recognition

Bill of materials recognition (BOM extraction) – extract BOMs from PDF

This tool extracts bills of materials (BOM – bill of materials) from technical PDF documents and recognises item positions, quantities, part numbers and other structured data from tables and drawings.

The PDF file is processed server-side and automatically deleted after analysis.

What is bill of materials recognition used for?

Bills of materials are a key basis for design, purchasing, manufacturing and ERP/PDM systems. This tool automates capturing data from technical PDF documents.

Typical use cases:

• Transfer of BOMs into ERP systems
• Import into PDM and PLM systems
• Review supplier documentation
• Digitising archived documents
• Preparing manufacturing data
• Reconciling item positions and quantities

Which data is detected?

Depending on the document and table structure, different information can be detected automatically.

• Item positions (Pos.)
• Quantities (pieces, qty)
• Part numbers
• Material numbers
• Part descriptions
• Material specifications
• other table information

Supported document types

• PDF files with embedded tables
• technical drawings with BOMs
• manufacturing drawings
• assembly drawings
• scanned PDF documents with OCR support

How does BOM recognition work?

1. Upload PDF file
2. Analyse tables and content
3. Automatically detect columns
4. Map item positions, quantities and part numbers
5. Create a structured BOM
6. Show or export results

Typical benefits

• Time savings in data capture
• Reduction of manual entry errors
• fast digitisation of existing documentation
• easy further processing in ERP and PDM systems
• automatic evaluation of technical documents

Current limitations

• Current maximum file size is 80 MB per PDF file
• By default, the first pages are analysed
• Scanned PDFs without clear table structure yield fewer matches
• Recognition quality depends on document quality and layout
• Additional system components may be required for advanced table detection