Re: Schema Design for a Inventory / BoM DB

[Peter Brawley]

Inheritance and related class concepts don't map well to relational databases. It may not be the best starting point.

You needn't, and likely shouldn't, impose a model from the top. The first task is to get all the elements and their relationships written down in one place, then experiment with ways to form them into sets of related entities until you find a model that supports all the queries the database must run. The basic process is summarised at http://www.artfulsoftware.com/dbdesignbasics.html.

Did you see the BoM discussion at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17651424/bill-of-materials-database-model?

See also http://coronet.iicm.tugraz.at/Dbase1/scripts/is12.pdf