I can imagine this complicating any supplier contract negotiations. "you pay X $50/unit more for the same device, etc."
One of the more interesting points of discussion was that when big companies negotiate purchase agreements for parts, the actual cost of the parts can be very transparent. The negotiation is generally about the actual markup e.g. "I think we should pay X% over cost.
Someone, logically, brought up: "What if the company is not willing to share the cost upfront?".
The professor responded: "Well, if it's a public company you can generally deduce a rough cost/part and use that as your starting point in the negotiation"
Student: "Well what if the company says we're wrong?"
Professor: "No problem: ask them what the correct number is. If they don't want to give it to you, ask them how you expect to have a long term partnership if you are not willing to talk openly and honestly about things like parts costs."
No business wants to share it's internal costs, it's their prime competitive advantage
Now, the federal government, particularly with drugs pricing, turns a blind eye towards the suppliers just jacking up the purported cost. E.g. Pharma:“we want to make $100 per pill, it costs us $5 to produce”. Fed: “we demand cost + 10%, because the people”. Pharma:”Fine, let’s say it costs $90 to produce.” Fed:”Where do I sign?”
Whereas Walmart would say to somebody like Nabisco, “GFY; if you want your product on our shelves, you’ll open your books and give us audited cost + 10%”.
If your business' primary competitive advantage is that it gets ICs for 1c less/per thousand, your business is built on shaky foundations. One that you would still want to disclose during negotiations ("yeah, our product is the exact same quality as Widget Co; but we've found a supply for some internal parts at slightly below market value").
Just as we as consumers know we pay extra to the company (even if the numbers aren't oblique), businesses know the same. It's about how much you're willing to spend, not how much they spent to build it.
I wish this dumb naïve argument would just die quietly in a corner.
A the value of a device is not its BOM. It has never been and it will never be.
There are so many other additional costs to factor in. Costs related to the manufacturing plant, its people, its tooling and its processes. Logistics costs related to bringing in parts. QA costs. R&D costs. Software maintenance costs. Marketing costs. Certain parts and software may have royalty fees associated with them. The list goes on, and on, and on.
So please, enough of the dumb "$device is only $2USD because its only a bunch of 2c resistors and capacitors on a PCB".
The thread was about literal parts costs and how knowing those means nothing to the value of a produced item. In which case, a BOM is directly and literally applicable.
No one is saying what you're so annoyed and frustrated about. Literally the entire thread is about how the value of a product is far greater than it's actual parts cost and why knowing that is useless for negotiation.
Learn to listen/read before you get yourself into a tissy about a made up sleight.
For a plane, it's going to be the former
That and the reason it's easy to get a BOM of cheap products is because you can buy them and tear them down. I can't see Airbus managing to buy a boeing and tear the entire thing down without Boeing noticing