One of the greatest services an electronics manufacturer can offer its customers are electronics kitting services. When multiple individual components are gathered, organized, and packaged into a single bundle for an assembly run, this saves both customers and manufacturers on costs, time, materials, and supply chain issues.

While kitting services are a great service, it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. SMTNW breaks down specific best examples and practices of electronics kitting services as well as moments where kitting services might not make the most sense.

Best Case Scenarios for Electronics Kitting Services

Kitting services make the most sense when customers need to reduce assembly time, limit picking errors, and ultimately simplify procurement for builds that feature multiple small parts or consistent production runs. Below are some of the best-case scenarios where electronics kitting services can enhance the overall manufacturing process.

  • Your team needs assemblies that feature multiple line items that need to be present from the beginning of the process rather than having operators spend considerable time searching for individual pieces.
  • When your project demands faster line setups and shorter lead times afforded by materials arriving in one, ready-to-use operation.
  • If your project requires fewer component shortages and mispicks, along with shipping mistakes where specific components are either in the wrong quantities or flat out missing.
  • For OEMs specifically, electronics kitting services lead to better inventory control and occupy less floor space as components are moved from loose stock storage and into production ready kits.

Common Users of Kitting Services

The best-case scenarios of electronics kitting services are meant to be a demonstrative point of view for an audience that’s considering these services, but to further drive the point, it’s critical to understand who exactly uses these services.

While not an exhaustive list, the following feature some of the biggest users of kitting services because of these scenarios:

  • Contract electronics manufacturers
  • OEMs in varied industries including medical, automotive, industrial, and consumer electronics
  • Specifically, consumer electronics, one of the most common examples is a component supply chain where manufacturers and suppliers such as SMTNW put together a bill of materials (BOM) that allow OEMs to avoid assembly delays caused by missing parts

Where Product Lines and Kitting Don’t Match

All of the information on electronics kitting services sounds like it should work for everyone in need of electronic manufacturing operations. However, that’s not necessarily the case and here’s why.

Kitting services aren’t an advantageous solution for customers that have simple builds, the bill of material hardly changes or the manufacturing process itself is largely automated to begin with. Companies that feature strong inventory control and inventory management, along with line-side material flow also aren’t the greatest cases to utilize kitting services as their systems are ironed out and honed in. A practical rule of thumb to keep in mind if you’re considering kitting services should be to use them if the cost of picking components, staging and mistake recovery is higher than bundling all of it together.

Contact SMTNW Today for Comprehensive Electronics Kitting Services

SMTNW has provided customers with technically sound, high-quality PCBA manufacturing services since 1996. While we’re based in Portland, Oregon, our reach goes beyond the Pacific Northwest as we serve the entirety of the United States with our wide span of capabilities including electronics kitting services.

Led by experienced and well-trained technicians, our kitting services feature automated processes to ensure accuracy and promote faster cycle and turnaround times.

Quality is paramount to our objective and by extension, our customers’. Our responsibility as an IPC certified electronics manufacturer requires us to provide streamlined documentation support for all the components used and placed within our customers’ builds and projects.

Contact SMTNW today for expert electronics kitting service solutions.