Phantom Bill of Material (BOM)

A subassembly that is assembled only to be included in another assembly. It is a method for moving around a group of components under one item number. A phantom represents an item that is physically built, but not stocked, before being used in the next step or level of manufacturing. This permits MRP and APS logic to drive requirements straight through the phantom item to its components.

Synonyms: blow-through, transient bill of material, pseudo bill of material.

Paraphrased from the APICS Dictionary, Eighth Edition