From parts list to flow: here's how we built it.
A conversation with Mark Veenendaal, technical director at Bos Machines, on working with Lego blocks, "keep it simple", and why Vault Basic is the perfect fit when you want to stay at the controls yourself.
Made in Holland · since 1985
Bos Machines: made in Holland, since 1985
In Vianen, Bos Machines builds advanced machines and complete production lines for the woodworking industry, under its in-house BMH brand. From a pack of timber to a ready-to-install window frame, fully automated through a single line.
The range is broad: from a Windowmaster for machining window frames, to a Routemaster, a Gluemaster and complete integrated production lines. What sets Bos Machines apart is the combination of mechanical engineering with an in-house software department that keeps the control system entirely in their own hands.
- In-house brand BMH, design, production and software entirely in-house.
- Broad BMH range, from CNC machining centres to complete production lines.
- Customers across Europe, with high satisfaction scores.
- In-house software development, including BMH 3D Master.
"What we're most proud of is the high satisfaction among our customers. We build technically advanced machines that work reliably, and take as much work off our customers' hands as possible.
We design our "Lego blocks" once, as well as we possibly can. But the parts list that goes with them:
we got sick to death of it.
All the information was already in CAD. But still ended up in ERP by hand.
Bos Machines works modularly. Every machine component — whether a transport track, a Z-axis or a machining motor — is designed properly once and then reused across dozens of machines. But building the parts lists that go with them takes almost as much time as the 3D design itself.
That frustration was the direct trigger to actively look for a solid CAD-to-ERP integration.
"The annoying thing is that all the information is already in the CAD package. Colours, weights, dimensions, quantities. Retyping that into Ridder iQ is pure overhead.
- Fully manual parts-list processing. For large machines this came close to half a working day per design.
- Overhead instead of added value. Experienced engineers lost weeks to administrative work.
- Error-prone retyping. A part forgotten on a parts list carries through to purchasing, production and assembly.
- Declining job satisfaction. Work the team visibly resented.
- Scalability at risk as Bos Machines takes on more complex projects.
Deliberately choosing Vault Basic. Against the advice.
Nearly every supplier they approached gave the same advice: for a serious integration you have to move to Autodesk Vault Professional. For Bos Machines that wasn't the case, and the company wasn't willing to fall in line.
"First upgrade to Vault Professional."
Nearly every party Bos Machines approached gave the same answer. But Bos had deliberately chosen Vault Basic, and wanted to keep their own hands on the controls.
"We don't need Vault Professional at all. Revision control and lifecycles we can handle just fine ourselves as a small group of engineers.
The reasoning behind that choice goes beyond cost or complexity. Bos Machines sees Vault Basic as a stronger starting point for their way of working: more control over their own process, less dependence on the logic a software package imposes.
"We want to be able to turn the knobs ourselves. In Vault Professional you get pushed around more by the system.
A complete wood-processing line that no one else would take on.
Mark doesn't have to think long when asked about the most characteristic project. In early July, a complete line is being delivered in which a pack of timber goes in one side and a fully machined product comes out the other, including the automatic cutting of glazing beads.
The line also adds laser codes to parts along the way for traceability further down the production process. It's that kind of detail — not just delivering a line, but thinking the entire handling through to its ultimate consequence — that characterises Bos Machines.
A direct integration from CAD to Ridder iQ. No Excel step in between.
The goal was deliberately scoped: not a broad transformation of the entire engineering process, but one clear core improvement — the parts list that is already fully known in Inventor, going straight into Ridder iQ without any intermediate handling.
"What matters to us: the complete parts list and order, fully automated, without manual intervention via Excel lists.
The fine-tuning that only shows up in practice
A typical example is the way different kinds of parts are described in CAD. A bearing is a bearing, a cylinder is a cylinder. But chain lengths and hose lengths are descriptively sensitive to context.
"Are you ordering two hundred links or two hundred metres? A three-metre hose is fundamentally different from a three-and-a-half-metre one. Integrations often fall over on that.
It's exactly these kinds of questions that can't be solved from a drawing board. Cadkunde worked through that alignment for Bos Machines, and it's on this type of detail work that years of CAD experience really come to the surface.
The integration was built fully custom by Jaap.
Cadkunde specialist Jaap Flonk built the integration between Vault Basic and Ridder iQ fully from scratch. He also runs custom projects for Bos Machines, such as rolling out a new corporate identity across thousands of drawings, including purchased parts that are normally locked from changes.
Built the integration between Vault Basic and Ridder iQ fully from scratch for Bos Machines, and solves the tough questions that only surface in practice.
"Jaap is exceptionally skilled at finding solutions. Someone who genuinely has an enormous amount of knowledge about how the CAD system works. We're very happy with that. It gives us the confidence that it'll get solved.
The magic word is:
keep it simple.
You're at the controls yourself, you know what's happening.
The integration works. Fitting it in starts now.
The complete ERP integration with Ridder iQ, including parts-list export, has been delivered and is up and running. Bos Machines is now in the fitting-in phase: a team that has worked its own familiar way for years is, step by step, adopting new automation into the daily routine.
Of the twenty hours an average design takes, almost half a working day used to go to compiling, checking and double-checking parts lists. Mark estimates that half or more of that disappears once the team has fully adopted the integration into its way of working.
Fewer hours on parts lists per machine project.
Per typical machine project, after rolling out the integration.
Automatically consistent article data from CAD to Ridder iQ.
Engineers do what they're good at; the drudge work goes away.
"It's not just time saved. Engineers can just get on with engineering. Do what they're good at.
A new way of working lands at the company's pace. Not the other way around.
Mark is open about something many case studies prefer to talk around: having a working integration is not the same as fully benefiting from it right away. The technology is in place. The actual rollout across all projects and all engineers moves at the pace that suits Bos Machines.
"We like what we can keep tabs on.
Installing an integration is a week's work; letting go of an entrenched way of working in which engineers have processed parts lists through Excel for ten years asks something else. It asks for trust, repetition, small wins that stack up. Anyone who is realistic about this up front knows that the real ROI isn't measured on delivery day, but in the months in which the new flow gradually displaces the old.
"Once the system is fully up and running, I'd love to do a demo here some time. So we can shake each other's hand and say: we sorted that out nicely together.
Then let's start a conversation.
Cadkunde helps manufacturers standardise, automate and integrate their CAD environment with ERP. Including when that means the standard path isn't the right one.