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There is a demand for software.

It'd be nice if it could import from a variety of weird formats, and export to those same formats.

It'd be nice if the user could select a bunch of components to include, and then send those to a supplier for quoting.

Imagine a subcontract manufacturer - they might get some ICs from one supplier, the passives from another supplier, etc. Having easy to split off groups of components to send off to get quotes for is good.

Add some minor spreadsheeting to total the money and tinker with the qtys. (Eg, cost for a one off; a five off; a ten off. Or costs for 10,000 over the next six months at monthly drops of 1,500 with a big end drop.)

But be aware that there's a bunch of really unpleasant almost-niche software already out there. It's often a kludgy bolt on to accounting / pay software.

Good Luck to anyone wanting to do it though.

What weird formats would you suggest?
In 2005 I was getting parts lists printed out on a dot matrix printer and sent via fax machine.

We asked for the spreadsheet file. We got a Microsoft Works .WKS file.

People in this industry are not always computer literate. (A manger had a parallel port printer. He was unable to connect it to his computer, despite there being only one connector the cable could fit it, and only one way round that connector could fit. Other managers wanted drawing documents on computers rather than paper so they could add changes. Try explaining why you can't scan a paper drawing and turn it into an auto-CAD file (when you don't own autocad) and why a gif file just isn't the same.)

They've spent a lot of money on their software. Something like Sage Line 100 (or similar.) So, if you can write something to interface with that list of weird accounting software you're pretty good.

Scanned paper. Not even joking - there's hilarious amounts of stuff locked away in pdfs that have to be OCR'd.
BOM generation is generally a module within CAD/EDA software. The BOM generator typically pulls information from the design files (eg. quantities, designators, component type, ...) and also has the ability to bring in information from an external database ( eg. suppliers, last price paid, ...)

The main value in a BOM generator is this ability to automatically collect information from the design files and, typically in-house, component databases, due to its integration. Any standalone web app would risk losing this valuable integration.

Note that the component databases are typically in-house, built up over the years, based on knowledge accumulated over many designs. Some engineers will even carry a personal database from job to job with them.

Rather than a BOM generator, I'd say a valuable product would be in a serious on-line database of electronic components. EDA manufacturers and component manufacturers have half baked efforts, but they all suffer from their being an attempt at customer lock-in rather than being a truly useful resource.

It'd be a huge job collating and maintaining such a database, but it could be quite lucrative, especially if it included a facility to link suppliers with customers. Think imdb, freedb or cddb, but for components instead of movies or songs. The entry for each component might include:

* Manufacturer's data

* Schematic symbols

* PCB footprints

* Parametric information

* A list of suppliers

* MOQ, lead time, price, ... for each supplier

* and so on...

You'd also need to be able to generate library data in various formats to suit each EDA/CAD tool, or provide an API through with EDA/CAD tools could issue queries on the fly.

It would also be a neat trick to integrate with some of the circuit layout website that are appearing, leaving open the possibility of building an EDA "design flow" by exchanging data between using a set of web sites.

--- CAD = Computer Aided Design

EDA = Electronic Design Automation