Make Indented BOM into Flat BOM

Hello Everyone,

I have been struggling with this problem for years and would greatly appreciate any support. Solidworks exports indented BOM's in the following parent child format.

1 - Top most Parent
1.1 - first child of parent
1.1.1 - child of first child
2 - second most parent
2.1 - first child of second parent
..
..
..
etc

I have provided a simple example below:

Number Item QTY
1 Truck 1
1.1 wheel 4
1.1.1 rim 3
2 axel 2
2.1 brake 4
2.1.1 brake fluid 6
3 window 1
4 Seat 1

I want to find the QTY of items it takes to make the Truck. The answer is below

ANSWER
Truck 1
wheel 4
rim 12
axel 2
brake 8
brake fluid 48
window 1
Seat 1

How would you go about solving this for larger BOM's?

Hey Jazzer,

Thanks for commenting on this, I appreciate that. This example was completely made up so the numbers don't particularly matter; I added an extra rim for clarity. I am only interested in the logic of how we arrive to the solution and how to utilize that logic on a much larger BOM. I have a BOM with 24 Parents and 800+ children and sub children that I need to flatten similarly to what I have shown below.

Regarding the brake pads per axel, the Axel (Item 2) has QTY (2) and it's child the brake (Item 2.1) has a QTY (4). Therefore, to make one Truck it will take 2 axels and 8 brakes. One Axel needs 4 brakes, thus 2 axels need 8 brakes. Similarly, to have a complete Axel assembly, we need brake fluid. It takes 6 brake fluid to make one brake. So we need 24 fluid per axel but we have two axel's per car so the total is 48 units of brake fluid.

Number Item QTY
1 Truck 1
1.1 wheel 4
1.1.1 rim 4
2 axel 2
2.1 brake 4
2.1.1 brake fluid 6
3 window 1
4 Seat 1


I have attached another similar example.

Number Item QTY Answer
1 Chair 2 Chair 2
1.1 Leg 4 Leg 8
1.1.1 Rivets 16 Rivets 128
2 Seat 1 Seat 2
2.1 Rivets 4 Rivets 8