Patent ID: 6999965

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of associating CAD data of an item with a corresponding BOM item in a particular bill of material (BOM) stored with at least one other BOM, the CAD data of the item including CAD information, the method comprising: collecting the CAD information from the CAD data of the item; securely transferring the collected CAD information; retrieving matching data of the corresponding BOM item in the particular BOM from a BOM database containing at least two BOMs, including the particular BOM; comparing the BOM retrieved matching data with the corresponding collected transferred CAD information to ascertain if there is a match between the CAD data information and the retrieved matching data; and in the case a match is obtained, associating the particular BOM item with the CAD data of the item, wherein each BOM is describable as a tree with each node a BOM item, wherein each BOM has an owner, and wherein the particular BOM and at least one other BOM stored in the BOM database with the particular BOM have different owners.