What is kitting?
When a kit is ordered, the system deducts every included item from stock as one transaction. That spares your team from pulling and tracking loose items order by order, which is slow and easy to get wrong. You will find kitting across warehousing, ecommerce order fulfillment, and manufacturing.
Key characteristics
- Single SKU: each kit gets one stock keeping unit and sells as one item, so you track it instead of a dozen loose parts.
- Component list: in manufacturing, a kit is built from a defined bill of materials (BOM), the parts list that spells out exactly what goes inside.
- Fewer picks: kitting trims steps in the warehouse’s costliest job. Globally, order picking accounts for 50–75% of warehouse operating costs and nearly 55% of labor time.
- Assembled at pick/pack: kitted items stay separate in storage and get combined during picking and packing.
- Two common uses: ecommerce bundles and subscription boxes, or manufacturing subassemblies pulled for the line.
Example
Arrowhead Electronic Healthcare, a Fishbowl customer, uses kitting to combine components, generate demand reports on what to kit, and track serial numbers for every item inside a kit. It keeps real-time quantities across multiple locations, so each kit and its parts stay accurate wherever they sit.
That serial tracking matters in regulated fields like healthcare, where you need to prove which exact components shipped inside a given kit. See how Fishbowl’s kitting feature puts this into practice.
Related terms
- manage each SKU: set up and organize stock keeping units.
- bill of materials: the parts list behind an assembled kit.
- multi-level BOM: layered component lists for complex builds.
FAQ
What is the difference between kitting and bundling?
Kitting pre-groups items into one SKU that gets picked, assembled, or shipped as a unit. Bundling is usually a sales and pricing offer, where products are promoted together but may still be picked separately.
Does kitting reduce fulfillment errors?
Yes. Building and checking a kit once removes chances to grab the wrong item, which matters when retailers expect 16.9% of annual sales returned in 2024.
Is kitting only for ecommerce?
No. Kitting is just as common in manufacturing subassemblies and general warehousing, anywhere the same items ship together often enough to group them.