Learn to use the 'Download product' feature. Create an export format for your Bill-of-Materials.
Format for Bill-of-Materials
In order to calculate your Product Footprint you need to know your Bill-of-Materials (BOM). With Mobius, you can easily import your BOM from Excel, by using the csv format. To retrieve the right format you can download the Excel format in Mobius by navigating to a product, click on the button ‘Tools’ and in the dropdown menu go to ‘Download product’.
Wait for a minute for the download to be complete and open the Excel file. After that, you will see different tabs in the Excel. The tabs consist of the product information and are mainly referring to the BOM of your product. There are six main columns that you need to fill when you import your BOM.
- in column A you find the Level; this is the layer level of your BOM.
- in column B: you find the Name of your product or object.
- In column C: you find the description of the item.
- In column D: the Amount is listed; this is the actual amount of each item (object or product) of your BOM.
- In column E: the Unit is required to enter; it typically refers to the unit of your product’s component and the subsequent layer in the BOM.
- In column F: you find the Label; this labels an item as a product or object. In this case, Mobius divides it either in a product or an object (learn more about product and object).
Let’s see how we can use this as an example.
For instance, you want to calculate the impact of a T-shirt. The final product will be 1 piece of a cotton T-shirt. The cotton T-shirt consists of materials and packaging. So, the right level for materials and packaging is level 2. The Cotton T-shirt is level 1, because it is the main output of the LCA calculation. The materials and packaging can consist of multiple items. These additional items (the raw materials) are categorized as level 3, and so on. The units entered in the subsequent levels (2, 3, etc) should be referred to your product’s unit for which you are creating the LCA model.
Our environmental specialists, Emma Thunnissen, will guide you through step-by-step to get your Bill-of-Materials export in the tutorial videos below.