Did you know KSP was born to provide kitting services to fortune 500 organizations in the state of MN? In fact, the original name of the business spoke to just that, Kitting Solutions Plus.
For those that may not be familiar, kitting is a process where individual items or components are gathered and combined to create a new, distinct product or package. This practice is commonly used by businesses that offer bundled, assembled or display products to their customers.
Fast forward a handful of years and customers were wanting more.
“Can you warehouse my product?”
“If I provide a distribution list, can you ship my product on an as needed basis?”
“Can you support my Shopify orders?”
The time had come to evolve and offer more than just kitting as a solution to our customers.
In 2019 we moved into a larger warehouse space to support that evolution. The warehouse included 10,000 square feet of open kitting space plus approximately 4,000 pallet locations for storage and fulfillment. At the time, our fulfillment to kitting ratio was 1:1.
The new model proved to be very successful. By the end of 2020, the warehouse was busting at the seams. We had started working with a new customer that not only wanted us to kit all of their finished goods, they wanted us to distribute them in mass quantities (the only thing we may ever thank the pandemic for😊).
The search was ON for new space to allow for this continued growth.
We have just completed our 2nd year in the new 225,000 square foot warehouse. The fulfillment to kitting ratio is now 10:1.
With this dramatic change in customer needs, some may think the demand for kitting has died. We can tell you with 100% certainty, it has not. Every single one of our fulfillment customers has required a kitting project at some point in their journey. The kitting process is an essential part of the order fulfillment process in so many ways:
Kitting allows for the pre-assembly of products. The order fulfillment process is much more efficient when the team can pick a “pack” of products vs. Picking individual items separately. This also offers more efficient storage need by storing as a “pack” vs. Individual components.
At KSP, we tailor kitting services to meet the specific needs of our clients, allowing for customization of product bundles based on customer preferences whether that be by retailer, holiday or promotion.
Kitting allows for the creation of ready-to-sell product bundles, which can enhance the overall customer experience by providing convenient and appealing packages.
Kitting has and will continue to be a valuable service for all KSP customers; after all, it's the foundation in which we were built.