Are you considering outsourcing order fulfillment and product shipment to enhance your company’s efficiency and improve customer service? If so, you’re making a smart move! Unilogic Group is here to guide you through the benefits of using a third-party logistics provider (3PL) and how kitting and assembly services can play a crucial role in streamlining your operations.
So, what is kitting and assembly, and how can they benefit your business? Let’s break it down for you.
What Is Assembly & Kitting?
Kitting and assembly are essential fulfillment services provided by many third-party logistics (3PL) providers. These services involve bundling individual items into cohesive packages before they are ordered by customers.
The need for kitting and assembly services can arise from various factors, such as the manufacturing or shipping process of a product, or upcoming promotions that require specific packaging configurations in bulk.
What is Kitting?
Kitting entails assembling separate pieces into ready-to-ship sets in advance, typically done in batches. This process aims to expedite the retail fulfillment process by having pre-built kits available for orders.
Unlike regular orders where the contents are uncertain until the purchase is completed, kitting is based on known combinations ahead of time. However, it’s important to assess whether kitting is suitable for your business needs. Consulting with a 3PL can help determine if these services align with your requirements, considering factors like cost-effectiveness and process compatibility with your manufacturer.
What is Assembly?
Assembly involves arranging the individual items that constitute a kit. Once assembled, the kit is prepared for shipping, reducing the workload after an order is placed. Kitting and assembly services are efficiently conducted at dedicated stations by fulfillment staff to enhance productivity and streamline operations.
The completed kits are then stored in designated areas. Common items used for kitting include product samples, promotional materials, and other product groupings to create unified sets.
In summary, what is kitting and assembly? These services, offered by 3PL providers, play a vital role in optimizing the fulfillment process, ensuring timely and efficient delivery of products to customers.
Benefits of Assembly & Kitting
Kitting and assembly services offer several key benefits, especially in the eCommerce sector:
- Enhanced Productivity and Cost Efficiency: By consolidating individual items into single units, kitting and assembly reduce the time and labor costs associated with locating and handling multiple components. This streamlined process accelerates production and lowers operational expenses.
2. Faster Order Fulfillment at Lower Costs: Bulk assembly of products facilitates swift order fulfillment and decreases pick/pack costs since each kit is treated as a single SKU.
Pre-assembled kits expedite production and minimize fulfillment errors, leading to efficient shipping processes and reduced expenses.
- Reduced Shipping Errors: Shipping mistakes are minimized when items are packaged in kit form, eliminating the need for weighing and labeling individual items. Uniform packaging sizes and weights result in reduced postal costs and fewer errors, contributing to smoother shipping operations.
- Inventory Management Optimization: Kitting simplifies inventory management by reducing the number of SKUs and enhancing inventory visibility. This organizational efficiency creates more warehouse space for production activities and enables effective inventory utilization strategies, such as bundling slow-moving items with high-demand products.
- Support for Startups and SMBs: For startups and small to medium-sized businesses with limited resources and space constraints, outsourcing kitting and assembly to a third-party logistics provider (3PL) can alleviate operational burdens. Leveraging 3PL services enables these businesses to streamline operations, ensure product consistency, and meet customer expectations without the need for extensive infrastructure or manpower.
Additionally, kitting and assembly services provided by a reliable 3PL can:
- Enhance customer satisfaction by simplifying product choices and reducing returns.
- Provide a competitive edge through unique packaging and product offerings that differentiate your brand in the market.
What is kitting and assembly? These services offer operational efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantages, making them valuable assets for eCommerce businesses seeking to optimize their supply chain processes and enhance customer experiences.
Unilogic Group and Assembly & Kitting
Supply chain management is a dynamic field where unexpected changes can significantly impact companies’ inventory, shipping, and warehousing operations. Factors like trade relations, tariffs, weather conditions, and labor issues can swiftly alter effective strategies, requiring adaptable solutions from business partners.
For one of our clients, who produces amenity travel kits for first-class and business travelers, a sudden issue arose with a key product: hand sanitizer. Due to FDA inspection findings at the supplier’s factory, the hand sanitizer received a black box warning, rendering it unusable. This affected over 1,000,000 already shipped amenity kits en route to the airline.
To salvage these kits, Unilogic devised a solution. We retrieved the shipments from the rail ramp and brought them to our warehouse. Our team meticulously unpacked each kit, removed the hand sanitizer containers, and repackaged the kits. We implemented a streamlined protocol and trained our warehouse crew to expedite the process efficiently.
In essence, our ability to quickly adapt to unexpected challenges and implement effective solutions helped prevent a significant loss for our client and ensured that the amenity kits could still be delivered to the airline without delay.
What is Assembly & Kitting? – A Summary
Kitting and assembly, commonly provided by 3PL companies, streamline the process of combining various components into a single product or kit. This consolidated product becomes one distinct item in your inventory, simplifying logistics.
With kitting and assembly services, you have the flexibility to create customized bundles and kits, allowing you to boost sales through promotions and discounts. Companies need partners that can adapt to changing market conditions and design solutions that are dynamic and resourceful as challenges increase in complexity. That’s where Unilogic Group comes in. Contact us today for more information.
