Bill of materials
Create your products' bill of materials to set up the foundation for impact calculation
A bill of materials (BoM) is a structured list of all components and materials required to manufacture a product.
1. Start the analysis
You can create a bill of materials in two ways:
Chat message
Describe your product in the chat interface.
Spreadsheet upload
Upload a spreadsheet with product data.
Chat message
- In the chat, select agent mode
- Write a message requesting a bill of materials by describing your product in detail.
Example request
Create a bom for 1000 units of wool sweaters produced in India.The more details you provide, the more accurate the results.
What to include:
- Quantity: Amount to analyze (e.g., "1 ton of aluminum")
- Country of production: Manufacturing location
- Production method: How it's made (e.g., "organic cotton")
- Specific product or brand: If applicable
Spreadsheet upload
If you have an existing bill of materials or similar product data as a spreadsheet, you can upload it directly:
- In the chat, select agent mode.
- Upload your spreadsheet by clicking the icon. Excel and CSV formats are supported.
- Write a message requesting a bill of materials and providing instructions on how to read the uploaded data.
Example request
Create a bom for 1000 units of wool sweaters produced in India.
Each row in the spreadsheet represents a material in the supply chain with its prices and quantities.
Come up with the most likely sourcing countries for each material.2. Review and refine your BoM
After you submit your message, the system generates a BoM table that outlines your product's direct components and materials, along with estimates of how these raw materials transform across upstream value-chain stages.
The chat agent also provides transparency by showing the reasoning steps behind the analysis, highlights the data sources used and direct links to them (if available), and explains why the system arrived at each of the BoM results.
The more guidance users provide about the level of transparency they need—or which data sources should be included or excluded—the more precisely the agent can tailor its analysis.
Explanation of the columns in the bill of materials table below:
| Column | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Material | The component or material used in the product, shown in a hierarchical structure: 1. End product 2. Material manufacturing 3. Intermediate materials processing 4. Raw material production | "SMD Capacitors (ceramic)" listed under the "Main PCB Assembly" |
| Matched Reference | The closest matching material category or dataset reference used to link the item with the correct environmental impact intensity factors for impact measurement. | Mapped to: "Other non-metallic mineral products" |
| Country | The sourcing or manufacturing country for the material either based on confirmed primary data, or a likely location inferred based on customer data, Nios datasets, or publicly available sources. | Japan |
| Spend | Spend-based values estimate the manufacturing cost of producing the material—excluding added margins such as VAT or other markups—and are used in impact measurement to match materials with spend-based intensity factors. | €6.4 total cost for 80 capacitors |
| Base Price | The per-unit spend of the material or component, aligned with the producer-level price used in spend calculations. | €0.08 per capacitor |
| Quantity | The number of units needed to produce the product. | 80 units |
| Unit | The measurement unit associated with the quantity (e.g., units, kg, m). | units |
You can refine your bill of materials in two ways:
Use chat
- In the chat, select agent mode.
- Write a message describing the changes you want to make.
Example requests
- Change buttons, core labels and sewing origin to China
- Change unit cost of 500kg of wool to 14€
- Add raw materials also for buttons, labels and thread
- Update cotton sourcing from India to Bangladesh
- Include packaging materials: 50 units of cardboard boxes from Germany
Edit table
- Select a table cell and edit its value. We automatically save the change.
- Remove or add rows to refine your bill of materials.
3. Calculate impacts
After finalizing your bill of materials table, click the Calculate Impact button to start the calculation.