A phantom item is a sublevel in the BOM that does not actually exist in inventory. It is used to simplify the BOM. Although the phantom item appears in the BOM, the components that comprise it appear in the Production Order.
An item can be defined as a phantom item in the Item Master Data.
Note
Only a Production BOM can have a phantom item.
The following BOM diagram shows two phantom items.
MRP
The MRP explodes the phantom item and creates recommendations for its components. The phantom item is displayed in the MRP result window without recommendations, for information only.
Production Order
The Production Order explodes the phantom BOM and displays its components in the required order. In the example below, in the production order, Components 1 to 6 will appear, but not Phantom 1 and 2.
Production Order
Different departments in the same company can have different BOM requirements. The engineering department could create a multi level BOM to define an engine. The manufacturing department could then include this BOM as a single phantom item.