The Kitting Process for Manufacturers: Examples, Benefits, & More

Kitting is an important inventory management practice often used to reduce the complexity and increase the efficiency of assembly in a given manufacturing process.

This process is particularly useful in assemblies where a number of small components are needed to complete a specific portion of the product and is necessary for make-to-order products that are highly customized for the end consumer.

In this post, we’ll examine how the kitting process is used in manufacturing, highlighting the many benefits it can provide to a manufacturer’s operation.

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Kitting can be defined as the process of picking and delivering all of the required components required for the assembly of a given product. Kitting can often happen within a manufacturing facility, at a cell away from the primary assembly line, or can be handled by the manufacturing business’ third-party logistics partners.

As discussed, kitting in manufacturing is particularly recommended when production businesses need numerous small parts to make a product. In other instances, the process is well-suited for manufacturers with limited floor space for stacking necessary parts.

Furthermore, kitting comes in handy when a manufacturing business makes customized products for its customers. For instance, kitting is ideal when creating a custom product that requires differently-colored parts or components with differing specifications.

In other instances, workers would waste a considerable amount of time if they went all over the facility in search of all screws and sub-parts needed to make an appliance. So instead, the required parts are availed in their relevant bundles ready for the production line.

While kitting is often used interchangeably with sub-assembly, the two processes are quite different. Kitting is typically conducted prior to sub-assembly taking place, where the various parts and components are collected into a kit, at which point they are delivered to a cell where a sub-assembly can take place.

Once the kit is delivered and the sub-assembly is completed, the sub-assembly can then be passed along to the next step in the production line where it is assembled into the final product.

As discussed there are a few specific business cases that would benefit from a kitting process as part of the broader assembly. They often include assemblies that require many small components where an operator would benefit from having all of the components available to them as they’re completing their tasks.

Additionally, kitting is valuable when customization of the finished product is required and different components, features, or colors are required by the end consumer. Some examples of products that benefit from kitting in the production process include:

• Dental implants - Manufacturers of dental implants like Dentsply process thousands of custom orders each day. Because each individual order is custom to the patient, no two orders are alike, and there are billions of potential kitting combinations.

• Medical devices - Medical device manufacturers like Laerdal Medical require kitting processes in scenarios where there are a number of different products and devices being assembled and delivered to the end customer.

• Boat and automobile manufacturing - High-end automobile and boat manufacturers often rely on kitting to ensure that the various parts of the finished product are aligned with customers' expectations. This can include everything from radio and speaker assemblies, to upholstery, trim, and much more.

With an understanding of how kitting is used in a variety of different manufacturing processes, it’s important to touch on the value that kitting presents to businesses. Kitting provides a number of different of benefits, including:

Optimized storage and warehousing

Manufacturing businesses running a lean production model aim to avoid waste as much as possible. In scenarios where kitting is fulfilled by third-party logistics partners, kitting helps businesses reduce waste by minimizing the space needed to store items.

Additionally, by bundling parts, manufacturers need less packaging, allowing them to allocate the free space for other storage needs.

Efficient production process

Because kitting provides all necessary parts to the operator in charge of assembly, production processes can be completed significantly faster and more efficiently. This is because workers don’t have to move all over the factory and storage area looking for individual product components.

Instead, operators are presented with everything they need in a single kit at their workstation, allowing them to spend more time completing the actual assembly.

Improved business profitability

Higher production costs cut into a manufacturer’s profit margin. However, optimized storage and more efficient production can go a long way in cutting down production costs and improving the manufacturing business's profitability.

Better inventory management

Manufacturing operations that use multiple components to craft products benefit significantly from kitting as it pertains to their inventory management.

Instead of going through the lengthy process of defining and appending SKUs and other identifiers to each component, they can bundle elements together and provide a single SKU for that kit. When searching inventory for the parts needed, getting a kit is faster and more convenient than looking up each individual piece.

Additionally, kitting ensures that manufacturers have enough parts to make a product. This is significantly better than finding out that some individual components are defective or insufficient to proceed with production.

Kitting looks straightforward on paper, you pull the right parts, bundle them together, and deliver them to the line. But anyone who’s spent time on the floor knows it rarely plays out that cleanly. The process has a way of creating small snags that turn into delays, errors, or unexpected costs.

Where things usually go sideways:

• BOMs that change constantly, sometimes even mid-order

• Inventory data that’s out of sync with what kitting teams are working on

• Manual steps where one mistake early in the chain shuts down a line later

• High-mix, low-volume builds that make standardization feel nearly impossible
  

The issue isn’t that teams don’t know how to kit, they do. The problem is that the systems around them haven’t caught up. This post digs into where the friction comes from, why it matters, and how some manufacturers are tackling it with better-connected tools.

Whether you’re setting up kitting for the first time or trying to fix one that’s gone off the rails, it takes more than putting parts in bins. A process that lasts is built piece by piece, with people, systems, and feedback all working together from the start.

1. Start with the Right Planning
Before anyone starts pulling parts, get clear on why you’re doing this. Are you trying to speed up changeovers? Cut down on picking errors? Free up operators so they can focus on actual production?

Once the “why” is clear, map the basics: Which parts will be kitted? Where will the kits be staged? How often will they change? Bring frontline operators into this step, they know the bottlenecks and shortcuts better than anyone.

2. Pilot Before You Scale
Don’t roll out kitting across the whole plant on day one. Pick one product family like one shift, or one line, and run a trial. Watch closely: how long do kits take to assemble, where do mistakes show up, how do operators actually use them?

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s about learning quickly, fixing pain points, and documenting what works before you expand. That way you’re not scaling problems.

3. Train for Adoption, Not Just Compliance
Even the best-designed kit will flop if people don’t buy in. Training should explain why kitting matters and what a “good” kit looks like and not just which box goes where.

Pair formal training with hands-on support. Assign process owners or experienced operators to walk the floor, answer questions, and gather feedback as the system rolls out.

4. Connect to Your Core Systems
For kitting to stick, it has to tie into the systems already running the plant. At a minimum, that means your WMS and ERP.

You’ll want BOM data flowing automatically, inventory counts updating as kits are picked, and real-time visibility into which kits are ready. Without that connection, you end up back in spreadsheets and manual reconciliations, which is usually where the errors start.

Kitting can feel like a behind-the-scenes process, but the impact shows up everywhere i.e. faster setups, fewer line stops, less scrap. When done right, it’s one of those rare changes that improves efficiency and reduces waste.

So how do you measure the return?

Here’s a simple example:

Let’s say you’re running a line with 20 setups per day.
Without kitting, operators spend an average of 8 minutes gathering parts each time. That’s 160 minutes per day lost to searching and sorting, over 13 hours a week.

Now implement kitting. Setup time drops to 3 minutes. You recover 5 minutes per setup or 100 minutes a day. That’s 400+ hours saved annually, just from one line. Now multiply that across multiple shifts, product families, or sites. But time savings are just the start.

Other Metrics That Tell the Story

• Error rate: How many builds are delayed or reworked due to missing or wrong parts? Kitting often cuts errors by 30–50%.

• Throughput: How many more units can you produce in a day when setups are faster?

• Operator utilization: Are skilled workers spending time on value-added tasks or chasing parts?

• Inventory accuracy: Does kitting improve real-time visibility into what's used vs. what's left?
  

Kitting is no longer just a lean best practice, it’s becoming a key area of digital innovation. As manufacturers push for more speed, traceability, and flexibility, the way kits are built, delivered, and verified is starting to evolve.

Here are three big trends shaping the future of kitting:

1. AI-Powered Vision Will Boost Accuracy and Accountability

AI vision systems are quickly becoming more affordable and accessible, even for mid-sized manufacturers. These tools can verify kit contents in real time by scanning bins, trays, or completed kits before they leave the staging area. In high-mix environments, this means fewer packing errors, better traceability, and automatic image capture for quality records.

Tulip’s Vision capability, for example, enables operators to trigger workflows using visual input, no need to manually check off every part. This opens the door to scalable kit verification without slowing down the process.

2. Robotics Are Taking Over Repetitive Picking Tasks

Robotic part picking used to be limited to high-volume DCs with deep pockets. But that’s changing fast. Advances in machine vision, gripper tech, and AI path planning are making it easier to deploy robots in smaller, more variable kitting environments. Expect to see more cobots working alongside human pickers - especially in settings where safety, speed, or labor shortages are top concerns.

According to the 2024 MHI Annual Industry Report, over 74% of supply chain leaders say they’re investing in robotics and automation to improve picking accuracy and throughput.

3. Cloud MES + Digital Traceability Will Tie It All Together

As kits move through production, the need for real-time visibility and traceability is only growing.

Modern cloud MES platforms make it possible to track kits from build to consumption i.e. logging part numbers, timestamps, and even operator actions at each step. Combined with e-signatures, visual records, and IoT signals, you get full accountability without the overhead of paper logs.

Platforms like Tulip make this traceability native. You can log kit creation, associate it with a specific order or shift, and pull up a full digital history when needed from any connected device.

Together, these trends point toward a more connected, error-proof kitting process, one where humans and technology work side-by-side, and every kit can be built, verified, and traced without guesswork.

Although kitting provides plenty of benefits to a manufacturing business, it presents some hurdles when performed manually.

Manual kitting requires relevant employees to sort through the different boxes to retrieve individual components to make a product. However, being a manual process, this form of kitting presents several points of error. As such, employees on the production line might find themselves working with incompatible parts.

On the other hand, kitting software makes the process more automatic. Additionally, kitting software automates data collection and helps track all of the items used in production, making it essential for manufacturers that require proof of traceability for compliance purposes.

When kitting is set up properly, it stops being a background task and starts driving real gains. Setups move quicker. Errors drop. Operators spend more time building and less time chasing parts. And if you’ve got the right digital support, those improvements don’t just stay on one line, they carry across shifts and sites.

You don’t have to flip the whole plant at once. Most teams kick it off with a single kit, a single product, and a small pilot. From there, the wins stack up. The proof is in the data: once the bottlenecks of part delivery are gone, production tends to flow cleaner all the way through.