B.O.M> spreadsheet> distributor>stock levels

Most of these big ERP vendors have a vested interest in huge, monolithic systems rather than modular systems with good, open interfaces between modules. This keeps customers on track to buy their whole thing, rather than doing phased migrations which necessitate interfaces to legacy systems.

A side effect of this is that their systems don't have decent interfaces available to the outside world that one can use for the stuff you are looking for.

Here in the US I use

Hmm, I also live in the Stone Age.I create an "order text file" for Digikey, I upload the text file as an order and I get to see it all in one shot: price and stock. Of course it's a manual process, but I suppose it could be done programmatically. I don't do it that often.

Hello Martin,

I've thought the same thing and so we did something about it.

In about a month we'll be releasing a java program (so platform independent) that will do just that: take a csv, auto-detect a few columns (the distributor part number and quantity), access the distributors database, find the best price for the number of assemblies across a few derived part numbers (different packaging available), and then check to make sure there is enough stock for the number of items needed (num assemblies time board quantity). Finally add the unit price, line cost, etc to the BOM and output as a new .csv file.

This will be released as an CadSoft EAGLE tool specifically, but the java program is tool independent: csv in and out. Any other schematic tool that can create the .csv input file with the few number of columns that are required will work just fine.

This tool will add the new columns (pricing, quantity available and some extra verification columns like ROHS status, manufacturer and part number). It won't edit or change any other column so you can have your own custom columns (like the links) so you can have an unlimited number of these.

I can't quite announce the distributor just yet as we are finalising details. But you will know who they are and we use them all the time.

The price is TBD but it will be very reasonable. Check in at the website below for the announcement in the next few weeks. The tool is in beta testing right now.

Cheers,

James.

That sounds interesting.

I just spent an hour or two with parts and vendors 5, and just got lost in its complexity, far too complicated for me.

What would be nice is if I could export p/n and quantity into my online order in farnell's/whoever order page, probably quite difficult though

Any provision for for swapping "out of stock cells" for "we've got it"

martin

Hi Martin,

That is one the list of possible functionality for future releases. For now you'll have to use csv importing which most online distributors already use.

Not yet. That's an interesting addition that we'll consider adding as I can see the immediate value of that. But that won't be in the initial release.

Cheers,

James.

This works quite well:

They either must have figured out how to suck in the data themselves, or else they are privy to the required methods. I know that this information and database gateways are available from various suppliers like Digikey and Mouser, but how big you have to be to get that info I don't know. In fact, next generation CAD programs will have this feature built right in to the part database, I've seen a beta system in action.

Dave.