A method of associating CAD data of an item with an item in a bill of material (BOM). The BOM is stored remotely in a database containing BOMS, not necessarily having the same owner. The method includes for a selected item collecting data from the CAD data of the item, formatting the collected data for transfer, transferring the formatted collected data to a remote location from where the BOM database is accessible, retrieving matching BOM items from a database containing one or more BOMs, comparing the BOM data of the matching items with the corresponding collected transfer data to obtain a match, and associating the matched BOM item with the CAD data of the item. The BOM uniquely identifies items using a unique identifier, and the associating is by attaching to the CAD data of the item the unique identifier used in the BOM database for the item.