Kitting parts for scheduled work

Kitting is picking the parts for a scheduled job before the day it happens, into a box with the job on it. It is the cheapest way to recover skilled time in a maintenance operation, because every trip to the storeroom mid-job costs far more than the walk.

What it actually saves

Not the walk. The interruption. A technician who stops a job to find a part loses the walk, the search, the queue, the walk back, and the time to get back into the work. Sampling studies consistently find parts and materials among the largest single causes of lost hands-on time.

What it needs from the schedule

Kitting only works if the job is planned before it is scheduled, which means the parts list exists on the job in advance. If jobs arrive at the crew as a description and a date, there is nothing to pick.

• •A standard parts list attached to the recurring job, not typed each time
• •The schedule fixed at least a few days ahead, so there is time to pick
• •A place to put kits that is not the returns shelf
• •A rule for what happens to a kit when the job moves

Start with the top ten recurring jobs

The jobs that happen most often, always need the same parts, and always seem to run over. Build the standard list once by watching the job done, and it is right forever afterwards with occasional tuning.

Kit the whole job, including the small things

Gaskets, seals, cable ties, lubricant, cleaning materials, the right fastener. Missing one of these sends somebody back to stores exactly as reliably as missing the main component, and they are the items nobody puts on a parts list.

Handle the leftovers on the same day

Parts returned from a kit have to go back on the shelf and back into the count that day, or the whole benefit is lost to a growing pile of unrecorded stock. Make the return part of closing the job rather than a separate task.

Measure it once

Time the top ten jobs for a month before kitting and a month after. It is one of the few maintenance improvements with a clean before and after, and having the number makes the storeperson’s hour easy to defend when somebody looks at headcount.