Customized kitting and fulfillment services built to scale operations
What are kitting and fulfillment services?
Kitting and fulfillment services help when a business sells and ships goods to customers that differ from the way the distributor or manufacturer sells the products. Usually, the final kit is composed of multiple, individual SKUs. Third-party and 3PL Kitting services allow businesses to combine multiple products together, to give customers a more robust and complete product.
For example, a customer orders and receives a decorative, framed palm tree picture that they purchase as one item from your store. For your store, the single item sold is composed of a bill of materials. This means, in your business backend, the one item is composed of 1 black picture frame, 1 palm tree poster, 2 wall mounts and 1 wire hanging cable. Kitting is the process of combining all 5 pieces into a sellable picture.
After kitting is complete, fulfillment services ship the final product to the customer.
Kitting jobs are unique to every company. Our kitting and fulfillment services are customized to your business needs. The requirements of kitting and fulfillment projects differ per industry, business and kitting specs, so we offer flexible services to do the job just like you need.
Some examples of kitting services offered by our fulfillment center:
- Product Composition: make 1 SKU from multiple products
- Development Kit Creation: send multiple SKUs to developers to test a product’s usability
- Label and Ticket Kitting: include custom graphics, labels and brand value-added items to high-end SKUs
- Sample Kit: create a bundle from top-selling SKUs to create variety sample kits for first-time customers to discover your brand
- Subscription Box: send periodic subscription boxes to your customers that are made up of different products each time
What is the purpose of kitting?
The purpose of kitting services is to assemble multiple parts or products into a bundle that delivers more value at the point of use or purchase. In other words, kitting takes multiple, individual parts and combines them together to create a more valuable product for the final customer.
Kitting adds value to customers and usually simplifies the customer’s usage of your product, or pairs it with other parts that it is commonly used with by consumers. Kitting is done for various reasons across industries and companies. Every kit has a direct use case or purpose in customers’ usage of your part or product.
Outsourcing kitting and fulfillment services to 3PL and third-party contractors can lower daily operating expenses and free up space to design or manufacturer more parts.
What does kitting mean in manufacturing?
Kitting delivers several parts to customers as one product or Kit
In manufacturing, kitting is a physical process that delivers value to customers by giving them a more complete product. Kitting adds new value for customers or gives them an easy implementation of using multiple parts together. Kitting in manufacturing saves customers time and money by combining multiple parts, rather than customers having to buy multiple parts and do the work on their own.
Kitting can also provide usable samples of parts, such as Development Kits. Customers often buy functional development kits from technical, electronic consumer goods and semi-conductor manufacturers to test a specific part or technology. Development kits are a great introductory product for customers and lead to future manufacturing opportunities.
Kitting is a value-added service for manufacturing customers. Manufacturing kitting products solve customers’ common usage of products by giving them a final product. Kitting in manufacturing requires unique attention to detail.
What are industrial kitting and fulfillment services?
Industrial kitting is the physical process that combines multiple parts into a single part that is used by customers. Industrial projects require a complex supply chain to get the right materials on-site within the right timelines. The materials and supplies are often complex and closely related, so the materials must be compatible and work together in the final project. Kitting services allow industrial businesses to combine multiple parts into a final component that functions independently.
Customers rely on industrial kitting and fulfillment services to deliver solutions and combined materials on time-critical project schedules.
What is kitting in a warehouse?
Warehouse kitting services package multiple products into one SKU sent to your end customer
Kitting in a warehouse is the physical process to create a new SKU by combining multiple SKUs into a new product. Products travelling through warehouses are often on the way from their origin to their final destination. Along the supply chain, warehouses often add value to end customers in the supply chain by combining two or more SKUs to create a more functional product for final consumers at the destination.
Final products created by kitting services in the warehouse range widely. For example, kitting can be as simple as packing two SKUs together to create a branded 2-pack. A more complex kit made in the warehouse could combine 8 SKUs using light assembly to build a universal bicycle-rack that fits in any vehicle’s hitch before shipping to the customer.
What does kitting mean in logistics?
In logistics, kitting is a physical step in the product lifecycle of a final product that combines multiple parts to create a new component product. The supply chain of most products is complex and requires kitting or assembly at several steps along the supply chain to combine raw materials or parts into a new product that will be used upstream in the logistics supply chain.
The supply chain of each product has many opportunities for kitting services. The best logistics solutions for deciding when to kit parts will depend on costs, operating expenses and available resources. At times kitting is performed at manufacturer facilities for reduced labor costs, but often shipping and upstream costs are negatively impacted so kitting is done in warehouses later in the supply chain.
Two methodologies to consider in the logistics of kitting services are just-in-time kitting and small batch kitting. Just-in-time (JIT) kitting is when parts are left separate until they are required. With JIT kitting, parts are left separate and grouped near each other until an order is placed. Once an order is placed, the parts will be picked and kitted by the warehouse before fulfilling the order.
Small batch kitting combines multiple parts into kitted products before customers place orders. In small batch kitting, the logistics and cost of the supply chain are complicated by the unsold inventory of kits.