Value Adding Roles - Kitting/Pre-assembly

What is kitting/Pre-assembly ?

Kitting is the addition of items such as accessories and batteries into the product pack. Pre-assembly is the completion of finished merchandise from component parts, or the pre-programming of products.


What are some services associated with kitting?

• Materials and Order Management
• Component Kit Build
• Assembly Line Operations
• Packing
• Shrink-Wrapping
• Blister Packs

Why is kitting so effective in value adding?

By providing them with these extra bonuses(usually with no extra charge), it will boost the customer's satisfaction with the company providing the kitting service. For sub assembly part customers, kitting increases manufactoring efficiency by the supply chain company delivering parts in a format that minimizes time searching for the parts. Some of these value added services such as packing and shrink wrapping are basic manufactoring functions that are done in the customer's warehouse. Outsourcing these basic functions will reduce labor costs of the manufactoring firm and more time can be freed up to perform other manufactoring functions. Kitting also allows easier handling of the sub-assembled parts as compared to a large bulky product.


Here are some examples of kitting/pre-assembly services





Kitting operations where smaller parts are bundled together and can be assembled again by a kit




Workers kitting sub-assembled products

Elaborated Explaination
For example:




A company has decided to manufacture life size Transformers(TM) robots and sell them to selected retail outlets
It manufactures and then ships it to a distribution centre for it to shipped to the selected outlets.
The size of this product is bigger than a Airbus A380.

So HOW does the distribution centre make it easier for the products to be shipped?

1. The order is placed for the specific activity(Transformer ID:001 for kitting)
2. The components for the product is moved from the warehouse location to the specialist service area
3. The components are assembled and labelled
4. The packing, kitting, leaflet and rework is released and done
5. The components are stored and quarantined
6. The product is then dispatched
7. Finally, it is distributed and tracked

2 – 3 usefulness of this topic in the distribution centre

• Kitting operations can be postponed until when customer order is received. This results in lower anticipatory risks for firms. As a result inventory invest can be reduce while meeting customer committment.
  
• Manufacturing is able to gain efficiency by just concentrating making the product and any additional work such as kitting will be done at the DC.

• Able to drive more revenue than costs for the profit center DC.

2 – 3 Constraints of this topic in the distribution centre

• Kitting of items should be perform carefully. Any error can result in costly return or reject. Example: Batteries pack are almost "similar" among same product line, thus the specialist must kit in the correct item.
• Kitting might increase the operating cost if not properly implemented. Example: kitting items do not come in on time causing bottleneck or inefficent picking system for kitting items.