Unpacking Assembly: What Does 'Kitting' Mean?

Ours is an industry of jargon, as any of you who’ve ever had an extended conversation with a logistics professional probably know (hopefully we’re not too guilty of that!)

Filled with shipping acronyms, technological terms and  transportation abbreviations, understanding our world can sometimes require a good look a Google… unless you read this blog!

We want you to understand exactly what we’re talking about, even when it requires using industry shorthand to explain a complete process. That’s why we’re starting out ‘Unpacking…’ series of posts, which will feature a quick, plain English explanation of a term from our industry.

Today is seems fitting to start on the assembly line, to explain what we mean when we refer to ‘kitting.’

What Is Kitting?

Kitting is the part of the order fulfillment process that  assembles individual products into ready-made sets. This can be gift boxes, promotional packages, or anything in between that requires distinct items  to be put together to form a set, which is also known as a ‘kit’.

Kitting services benefit businesses in a number of ways:

• Adds value to the standard order packing and fulfillment process, creating more attractive product packaging and other elements that end customers enjoy.
• Saves time on bringing together products that consist of many parts, especially when those parts come from multiple suppliers.
• It brings several goals together in one when product fulfillment is also used to add promotional literature like catalogs or coupons.
• It provides a quick and easy way to broaden your product range, by bringing existing items that complement each other together in a new.
• Kits can be created at a location closer to the distribution point, minimizing handling errors and the potential for breakage.

So now that you know a little more about where kitting fits into the assembly process, here’s Capacity LLC’s Director of Assembly, Emily Siegert, to talk about how we go about it:

We’ll have a more in-depth look at how your business can get more from the assembly line next week, so stay tuned to our on Facebook,  Twitter and Google+ streams to keep up to date!