When releasing a engineering product from the engineering organization to the operational companies, only the active BOM on the product version is included. It should be possible to choose to include all inactive BOMs in the release as well. This could be set by a parameter or similar.

Business case 1

The engineers create and engineering BOM (E-BOM) in the engineering organization. This BOM represents what the product contains and how it's structured. To manufacture the product the BOM must be restructured to allow for efficient production, a manufacturing BOM is created (M-BOM). The M-BOM should be the active BOM since this is what should be used for production however, it is still necessary to have the E-BOM in the operational companies for buying spare parts.

Business case 2

All products are centrally managed from the engineering organization, however since all production companies may not be structured exactly the same there may be some minor differences in the BOMs. Since most changes to BOMs on the engineering version are not allowed in the operating company, this could be by creating multiple BOMs in the engineering organization releasing all to the production companies and only activating the relevant one.

Conclusion: Allowing for inactive BOMs to be released with the engineering product versions to the operational companies would allow for more flexibility and creativity in creating D365 ERP solutions.