project cost

[randy_u]

I have recently been designing a couple of devices and using Kicad to design them; I have to say it’s been a quite enjoyable experience. This program is top quality especially considering its price.

The most tedious part of the engineering process has been the importing of data on each part into a database or into Kicad to document the bill of materials and calculate units costs. I have probably spent more time doing that than actually designing circuits and pcbs.

I had an idea that would make the process significantly easier and much faster but would require effort on both the developers of Kicad and parts suppliers.

My idea is fairly simple. On each supplier part page have a link to a file, probably XML, that contains all of the data the supplier has (or wants to publish) on that part. This would require the creation of some documented, hopefully open source developed, XML structure that can be easily generated from manufacturer data or suppliers existing databases and can be imported into Kicad. The user would be able to select the part in EESchema or CVpcb (and back annotate into EESchema) to allow PCBnew to put the correct package footprint on the pcb when the netlist is read. This would allow the Bill of Materials to be more robust and the addition of a project cost sub-module in EESchema (based on user selection of quantity).

Off the top of my head the XML structure would look something like this:

<Manufacturer>
<Manufacturer Part Number>
<Part Group>
<Part Type>
<Part Subtype>
<Part Value>
<Mount Type>
<Package>
+<Suppliers>
                <Supplier Name>
                <Supplier Part Number>
                +<Price>
                                <Qty_Start>
                                <Qty_End>
                                <Price>
<Datasheet Link>
+<Additional Specifications>
                <Spec Name>
                <Spec Value>

I’m sure there’s plenty more to add to that structure and I’m pretty sure that there's plenty of people that have experience that would be beneficial to the creation of the standard structure.

Even if the suppliers don't initially subscribe to this idea us users could create and share these XML files and hopefully this concept (open standard) would be adopted by not just Kicad but all major EDA software applications - then eventually the suppliers would come on board.

[nobody (nobody-users)]

To go one step further, integrate with one or more of the open source ERP/CRM systems such as Compiere.

[nobody (nobody-users)]

What it is really needed is the company_part_number because this can be the index to the data base where all the other data are stored.
One of the field of the component properties should be Pno. and may be one fieeld can be Manufacturer P No.
No part should be used if does not have a company part number. For one time circuit you can use the project number followed by a sequential number.
Gianni

[randy_u (randy-u)]

ADDITION:
I talked to Mouser and they said they would be interested in pursuing this concept.

[nobody (nobody-users)]

SUre !!

[bennett78 (bennett78-users)]

Check out octpart.com & http://octopart.com/api/documentation.

This solves the supplier, procurement side by specifiying the exact part of interest
but not the symbol or footprint selection for each part !

[xzcvczx (xzcvczx)]

the bom export is more suitable for this sort of thing

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

There a tool called KiCost (https://xesscorp.github.io/KiCost/,https://github.com/xesscorp/KiCost), written in python, that scrape the distributors web page and assembly a bill of material with cost spreadsheet.
But this tool still need that each part on the design have the own part-number (or distributor stock number).

[Hildo Guillardi Júnior (hildogjr)]

Video explaining how (a old version) works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeccxROpDfY