Best Practices for Kitting and Sub Assembly
Best Practices for Kitting and Sub Assembly
Introduction
Let 's talk about Best Practices for kitting and assembly. They mean different things depending on your position within the supply chain. Many companies use kitting and assembly interchangeably together but they are indeed different.
Manufacturers typically use the term assembly while wholesaling industry (comprised of 3PL and distribution companies) use kitting. You are either combining raw materials to create a finished good, or combining already finished goods into a larger group. Even if you have raw goods, you can still kit for assembly. Kitting is for anyone who wants to combine group items together, build a product, or make a master item.
If you are a distributor looking to build business with just-in-time manufacturers, kitting is a value-added service to offer to prospects during your sales/business development conversations. If you are a 3PL, you may have manufacturing customers that, due to a lack of storage space for example, may want to send you raw goods for kitting.
Kitting Defined: it depends on your perspectiveKitting applications are wide and varied. Dell uses the process to assemble the millions of desktop and laptop computers that it annually sells. In this case, it is assembling finished goods into a larger whole.
In contrast, a more classic manufacturer will deliver predetermined quantities of components and subassemblies to the factory floor where they are placed together in specific containers. There are also multiple other versions: * Light assembly of components or parts into defined units * The physical task of collecting and assembling materials that serve as components of an assembled presentation, product or package * Placing two or more items into a grouped item sold as a single item from the inventory file * A cost-effective way of procuring all components required to make an assembly * Products packed and labeled individually for each
Introduction
Let 's talk about Best Practices for kitting and assembly. They mean different things depending on your position within the supply chain. Many companies use kitting and assembly interchangeably together but they are indeed different.
Manufacturers typically use the term assembly while wholesaling industry (comprised of 3PL and distribution companies) use kitting. You are either combining raw materials to create a finished good, or combining already finished goods into a larger group. Even if you have raw goods, you can still kit for assembly. Kitting is for anyone who wants to combine group items together, build a product, or make a master item.
If you are a distributor looking to build business with just-in-time manufacturers, kitting is a value-added service to offer to prospects during your sales/business development conversations. If you are a 3PL, you may have manufacturing customers that, due to a lack of storage space for example, may want to send you raw goods for kitting.
Kitting Defined: it depends on your perspectiveKitting applications are wide and varied. Dell uses the process to assemble the millions of desktop and laptop computers that it annually sells. In this case, it is assembling finished goods into a larger whole.
In contrast, a more classic manufacturer will deliver predetermined quantities of components and subassemblies to the factory floor where they are placed together in specific containers. There are also multiple other versions: * Light assembly of components or parts into defined units * The physical task of collecting and assembling materials that serve as components of an assembled presentation, product or package * Placing two or more items into a grouped item sold as a single item from the inventory file * A cost-effective way of procuring all components required to make an assembly * Products packed and labeled individually for each