Kitting is today’s most popular and efficient way to distribute a company’s product. The kitting process is a strategy used to maximize a business’s shipping and handling, while also being extremely cost effective. Many medium to small sized businesses, whether physical plants for ecommerce fulfillment, outsource their kitting process via a 3PL company to take their product directly to the hands of the customers. What products typically require kitting services, and what are the benefits of kitting for your products?
What is Kitting?
Kitting refers to the process of taking small individual components of a product and packaging them into a singular “kit,” which is then prepared for production assembly and distribution to the customer. Kitting, by itself, is the process by which separate but related items are picked, packaged, and supplied together under one part number. The ideal is to have preassembled and packaged product put together that is ready-to-ship as soon as ordered, which requires planning ahead to build the number of kits needed to fulfill orders, saving time and money.
What Products Typically Require Kitting Services?
Kitting and packaging are critical components of warehousing and fulfillment. Products needing to be properly packaged and shipped require a process that ensures physical and barrier protection, minimized shipping security risks, proper labeling, convenience, portion control, inspections, and quality control. There are various types of products that require kitting services such as:
- Product Samples
- Cosmetics
- Nutritional supplements
- Electronics
- Media Kits
- Toys
- Auto Components
At NewStream, our kitting service specializes in many different types of products.
Kitting is done when your orders require the services of a fulfillment center to arrange items in a specific order (e.g., multiple components that arrive that need to be assembled for one complete product). These components all correlate with one specific product, for which you would create a new SKU, and cannot be sold separately as individual products. A bundle is a package that includes two or more separate items that require no assembly, merely only the packaging. A bundle also does not require any specialized training for assembly. It is not actually a real product on its own but serves as a container that holds separated items. Be sure to ask your 3PL if either product kitting or bundling is right for your product, based on your customer orders.
Benefits of Kitting
The biggest advantages of outsourced kitting and bundling products are the cost containment and time savings that keep business revenue and profits up. Using a kitting warehouse for order fulfillment helps you manage costs in the supply chain by improving efficiency and timeliness. Minimizing handling of parts, smaller labor costs, and reducing work-in-progress means less time spent on preparing inventory. To avoid training costs, reduce line stoppage and unnecessary damage to parts by utilizing a team with an accuracy rate that exceeds 99.9%.
Kitting centers also keep inventory management costs down to free up your available warehouse space. Partnering with a provider like NewStream allows you to leverage our extensive operational expertise while you stay focused on meeting your key performance indicators (KPIs) and achieving continual growth. NewStream, a fulfillment kitting-service provider, adds value to your product because of our warehouse kitting experts.
In short, kitting adds value not only to your products in the short-term forecast, but also in long-term planning. Outsourcing third-party kitting services have rapidly increased in availability. NewStream Enterprises has the extensive kitting experience needed to turn your complex kitting project into an easy-to-manage process flow, from pick pack and ship. Unlike other organizations whose compensation packages and work environment all but ensure high turnover rates, our employees possess the opportunity for ownership in the company and for direct input into how to constantly improve our performance and service for increased customer satisfaction. Few other kitting operations can claim that, and both our employees and our customers benefit from this approach.
Contact us today for a free kitting quote!
