Whether you’re a manufacturer looking to improve material flow, maximize shop floor space, and adopt lean manufacturing best practices, an e-commerce enterprise wanting to increase revenue while also reducing dead stock or slow-moving inventory, or a warehouse and distribution center wanting to optimize shelf and warehousing space while increasing inventory turnover, there are numerous advantages to product kitting.
Understanding how kitting and assembly solutions work for manufacturers versus how they work for e-commerce enterprises, warehouses, and distribution centers goes a long way to maximizing returns and improving efficiencies. Kitting is a specific process with its own set of procedures and those procedures depend largely upon the type of company that uses it.
Manufacturers Adopting Lean Manufacturing Best Practices
For manufacturers, the kitting meaning is different compared to other companies. In manufacturing, the kitting and assembly process is initiated by the customer’s purchase. The raw materials, parts, tools, and consumables needed to manufacture the finished product are derived from that finished product’s bill of materials (BOM).
The BOM lists every line item required to fulfill the customer’s order. Everything is placed within a bin as a single “kit” and provided to production. That kit then flows through various stages of production as it gradually moves from a semi-finished to a finished product. Employees don’t waste time visiting inventory storage for much-needed parts and consumables.
Kitting in manufacturing eliminates multiple forms of waste. It improves material flow, reduces the burden on inventory space, eliminates wasted technician/production employee time looking for essential parts, consumables, and materials, reduces inventory waste and consumable overuse, and acts as a fail-safe/error-proofing Poka Yoke solution during picking and assembly.
Kitting and Fulfillment in E-Commerce
In e-commerce and warehouse fulfillment applications, kitting allows companies to combine multiple in-demand products with less popular or lesser-known inventory items. Customers receive one kit of different products while the e-commerce enterprise increases sales while decreasing its inventory of slow-moving or dead inventory. Think of a brake assembly for an after-market automotive supplier; calipers, brake pads, and rotors can be included with additional hardware products like locking bolts, shims, seals, pins, and other ancillary support hardware.
The kit is marketed and sold as a single item – which often requires a single designated inventory SKU. Like manufacturers, e-commerce enterprises and warehouse fulfillment can free up valuable shelving and inventory space, reducing picking and packaging errors, and reducing per-unit shipping costs while providing the customer with increased value.
The best e-commerce enterprises borrow from lean manufacturers by creating streamlined warehouses with multiple lean packaging workstations where kitting specialists have instant and immediate access to each product. Inventory replenishment for these packaging workstations is handled by support employees.
For e-commerce, warehousing, and distribution centers using product kitting systems, order fulfillment times are drastically reduced while still being able to offer multiple inventory SKUs or kits to accommodate customized orders.
Bossard – Your Kitting and Assembly Solutions Provider
Long recognized as a global market leader in fastener technology, Bossard combines its premium-quality fasteners with C-part management, logistics, and warehouse strategies and digital solutions that provide increased productivity and bottom-line savings. Regardless of whether you’re a manufacturer, e-commerce enterprise, warehousing fulfillment, or distribution location, our logistics and warehouse subject-matter experts can help you with unparalleled insight and guidance on adopting product kitting solutions.
To learn more about Bossard’s kitting and assembly solutions and how our cutting-edge digital logistics tools can maximize your business, contact us now.
