A streamlined production process where every part you need arrives bundled together, ready for immediate use – no delays, no missing components. Through the power of kitting, manufacturers optimize and streamline inventory management in a highly efficient way. Simplifying assembly workflows, reducing errors and downtime, cutting costs, improving efficiency and saving valuable time in all production stages, establishing a kitting process transforms the way your business works. Discover why this inventory technique is the key to a smoother, more efficient – and profitable operation.
What is Kitting – And What Are Its Key Components?
Kitting is an inventory management process of assembling pre-determined components into a kit or package for subsequent assembly or manufacturing processes. This involves gathering and combining various parts or materials that are required to complete a specific product or task. By determining the specific components needed for a product in advance, manufacturers can ensure that all necessary parts are readily available.
Assembling parts and components for products into specific kits streamlines the production process by reducing the time spent searching for and locating individual parts. This not only improves efficiency but also helps to maintain product quality by minimizing the risk of errors. Kitting enhances inventory management by keeping parts organized and reducing the risk of shortages or overstocking, making it a key-procedure for optimizing production and reducing costs.
Every Component at Hand – At Any Moment
Good cooks start by bringing all the recipe ingredients together on the work surface. It’s more efficient, it means not having to keep visiting the refrigerator or the larder, and it avoids finding out half way through that there isn’t enough milk, or that the last egg is cracked and unusable. It’s just the same in shop floor assembly (production or in-field service).
Imagine a complex electronic device, like a medical device, with countless parts sourced from various suppliers or distributors. To work effectively and efficiently, the engineer needs all items readily available, not only the major items but also the complementary parts such as various assemblies, mechanical fasteners, couplings, hoses, consumables etc. All these products, often small and delicate, need to be readily to hand, but at the same time kept safe and secure until they are needed.
Ideally, such parts are presented to the engineer as a single, organized ‘kit of parts’ – a sort of tool box. From building heavy machinery to assembling smartwatches, kitting has become an indispensable tool in industries where precision and speed are paramount. It’s like having a pre-packed puzzle box, where each piece is already in its designated place, ready to be assembled with ease. Such a kitting service is among the integrated supply services that MAG45 provides for our customers.
The Complete Package: The Benefits of Kitting
Kitting means that production or service engineers have the assurance that all the necessary parts are available at the beginning of the task. Small and often delicate parts are kept safe and secure from contamination, damage and loss until they are needed. Valuable working time is not wasted and production is not interrupted, because engineers are retrieving additional parts from stores. Nor do service visits have to be repeated because the necessary parts are not present the first time around.
A well organized and presented ‘kit’ gives visual confirmation that all the parts are present. The kitting process eliminates the need to leave a task incomplete or that subsequent operations are delayed. Multiple separate parts are reduced to a single stock number, which simplifies requisitioning and inventory administration, ensuring there’s less room for shipping errors and handling mix-ups. The customer is relieved of the burden of accurately picking many small parts or alternatively of maintaining stocks at point of use.
Automation and Integration of The Kitting Process
Automating and integrating the kitting process with existing manufacturing and inventory systems further utilizes the significant benefits a kitting strategy provides organizations. When integrated with ERP or warehouse management systems, automation enables real-time inventory tracking, reducing stock discrepancies and ensuring timely reordering. This integration allows companies to be more agile and responsive to production demands, driving operational efficiency in today’s fast-paced manufacturing environments.
Rather focus on core competencies? Understandable. And that’s exactly the leeway outsourcing kitting activities to a specialized partner like MAG45 offers. Offloading the complex and time-consuming tasks of sourcing, assembling and managing kits, frees up storage space, production capacity – and hands. As your expert partner we integrate automation technologies that streamline the entire process, leading to faster production cycles, better inventory control and more consistency in quality. From procurement to delivery – even extending to specialized environments to handle sensitive components, such as a cleanroom.
MAG45’s Cleanroom Facility
In short, cleanrooms are controlled environments designed to minimize the presence of contaminants. Several of our customers are manufacturers of machinery that is assembled – and subsequently used – in cleanroom conditions, so cleanroom standards obviously have to apply equally to the parts and components they receive. MAG45 has therefore opened its own cleanroom so that it can carry out parts kitting operations to the necessary standards – preventing contamination and ensuring that products meet the highest standards of purity.
Our new cleanroom opened in March 2020 and was built by cleanroom specialist Interflow. We have also taken advice and guidance from our customers in the semiconductor industry as well as from our partners who do the actual cleaning of our products. In our cleanroom we have approximately 200 SKUs of our most commonly used products to assemble various kit variances. Parts have to be picked, placed in containers or dunnage, and assembled into the ‘tool-box’ (and of course all the packaging materials likewise follow a clean regime). Appropriate labeling for individual parts and for the whole kit is also critical.
Cleanroom Class Compliance
At rest, the cleanroom meets Class 6 of ISO 14644; or Class 7 when people are present. The ISO standard specifies the number of particles over a certain size in a volume of air in the cleanroom. When people are working in a cleanroom this automatically increases the number of particles. Most of our customers measure the number of particles on a given surface area, which is subtly different. We work with in-house standards that are widely recognised.
Our cleanroom operation – with its many unpacking, assembly and repacking sequences – is not typical, and we have worked hard to devise logistics flows and product routes that prevent any risk of cross-contamination. This applies all the way from the receipt of cleaned parts to the shipping of completed kits to our customer or their end-user. Similar considerations display another advantage of kitting as a supply strategy – it is of course much easier and simpler for a field engineer to introduce a single sealed box of parts into the safe, controlled environment of a machine than it would be twenty individual packages.
Looking to a More Sustainable Future
In recent years, there has been significant positive development in the field of kitting and return logistics. This is particularly evident in field service operations, where kits often contain parts that may not be required in all service calls. The ability to efficiently return unused or defective parts while maintaining their cleanliness is not only beneficial for the environment but also for improving supply chain efficiency. By reducing the need to restock expensive components that are in high demand or have long lead times, businesses can minimize disruptions and ensure a more sustainable and responsive supply chain.
Kitting, whether in a high-tech cleanroom environment or for more run-of-the-mill situations, is a powerful method of simplifying supply, while reducing downtime and unproductive time and eliminating error. While it is an approach that can be adopted in-house, using the dedicated specialist services of an integrated supplier such as MAG45 will lower the total costs involved and may introduce new levels of flexibility and accuracy.
Let MAG45 Streamline Your Kitting Process
At MAG45 we understand the value of streamlining your operations, which is why we offer fully integrated kitting and automation solutions. By automating the kitting process on your behalf, we take the burden of assembling components off your hands, delivering pre-packaged kits directly to your production line. This not only reduces the time and labor required on your end but also ensures consistent accuracy and efficiency.
Our automated systems work seamlessly with your existing ERP and warehouse management systems, providing real-time inventory tracking, reducing stock discrepancies and ensuring that you always have the parts you need, when you need them. By allowing us to handle the kitting, you can focus on what matters most – running a smooth, efficient and cost-effective operation.
Unlock the full potential of your supply chain with MAG45. We specialize in customized solutions, relying on our global supply base and flexibility to meet your kitting needs. Our dedicated team is committed to delivering exceptional service, tailored solutions, and delivering unmatched value.
