Chick provides kitting, sub-assembly services and inventory management services for some of the world’s leading manufacturers. Using the kitting expertise of Chick, these companies are better able to focus on their own core operations. This in turn reduces manufacturing costs and working capital drag while increasing production throughput and efficiency.

A very large global manufacturer had won a bid to expand its locomotive manufacturing overseas, but the foreign government agencies behind the transaction were pushing for tremendous levels of local labor content. Faced with the need ramp-up production rapidly yet maintain high product quality, the company turned to Chick to help. Our solution was to design and construct kits of parts that could be exported to the foreign production site, opened and sequentially assembled into finished locomotives with a minimum of learning curve and a maximum of quality control.

The preparation of these production kits involves many typical kitting functions: accumulation of individual parts; sorting, inspecting and staging of inventory; creation of reusable job-specific packages; real-time customer computer inventory updates; and consolidation of completed kits for delivery to various manufacturing operations. Each kit box contains a map of the part numbers and their location in the kit; inspection procedures ensure correct counts, part number markings, or any other customer-identified processes. Chick receives and holds the full inventory of parts and – being directly connected into the customer’s Oracle-based inventory system – is responsible for maintaining and adequate stocks for projected future demand.

Chick’s outbound kitting solution for this world-class manufacturer has resulted in several benefits:

• Reduced downtime for locating and gathering parts
• Reduced production time due to the workflow-based organization of the kits
• Tighter inventories due to more precise relationships between production demand and supply ordering
• Lower training requirements and simpler supervision of intra-day production progress; and
• Reduced pilferage of expensive small-parts and materials.