Twenty eight parts found, one missing
An enclosure has twenty nine parts: panels, brackets, gussets, a door, hinges and a mounting plate. The assembler gathers them from stillages and the finishing rack and finds twenty eight. The small mounting plate is missing. Was it cut? The nest it was on was run on Tuesday. Was it bent? Nobody knows. It might be on the coater's van, or in a pile of offcuts, or never nested at all.
The half built enclosure goes to the side of the bay, taking up space, while someone searches.
Why kits are incomplete
Sheet metal breaks an assembly into many flat parts that travel separately. Nesting mixes parts from many jobs on one sheet to save material. Bending groups by tooling. Finishing groups by colour. Each step is efficient on its own, and each scatters the assembly further.
- Parts from one assembly are cut on several different nests.
- Small parts are easily lost when the nest is broken out.
- Nobody checks the kit until the assembler needs it.
- Parts added by an engineering change are not added to the nest.
- Finished parts come back from the coater in several loads.
What an incomplete kit costs
Assemblers waiting or switching between half built jobs. Bay space full of part assembled work. Urgent single parts cut on the laser at the cost of a full setup. Late deliveries caused by the smallest part of the job. And duplicate parts made because a missing one was assumed lost and then turned up.
The kitting system we build
- Each assembly's parts list comes from your CAD bill of materials or job, with quantity, material, thickness and finish for each part.
- When nests are created, the tool checks that every part of every released assembly is in a nest, and flags any that are not.
- Parts are counted off the laser, off the brake and back from finishing, by scan or by confirming the nest as complete.
- A kit view shows each assembly with each part's status: not nested, cut, bent, at finishing, ready. Complete kits are highlighted for assembly.
- For short kits, the missing part and where it is stuck are shown, and the planner can push it through or recut it deliberately.
- Assemblers are given complete kits, with a labelled tote or stillage for each assembly where that suits the shop.
| Kit status | What it tells the planner |
|---|---|
| Not nested | A part has been left out of cutting |
| Cut, not bent | Waiting at the press brake |
| At finishing | Waiting on the coater |
| Short at assembly | Which part and where it was last seen |
| Complete | Ready to release to the assembly bay |
What the assembly bay gets
Assemblers start jobs that are complete, rather than finding out halfway. Missing parts are found at the nesting stage, when adding them costs little, rather than at assembly. The planner can see which kits will be complete when, and release assembly work in a sensible order. Recuts become a decision with a reason, not a panic.
Engineering changes are handled too. When a part is added to an assembly, it appears as not nested on the kit, so it is not forgotten.
Dispatch benefits at the end of the line. Where an order is delivered as loose parts rather than assembled, the same kit view becomes the packing check, so a customer does not receive a flat pack with one bracket missing.
Is assembly waiting on missing parts?
- Assemblers find missing parts halfway through a job.
- Half built assemblies fill the bay.
- Small parts are recut because they cannot be found.
- Nobody checks kits before assembly starts.
- Engineering changes leave parts out of nests.