When it comes to choosing your parts manufacturer, you have a few options: a traditional manufacturer that deals with the creation of large volume, single-part production, or a company that goes beyond with additional capabilities in diversity, including kitting and parts assembly. Sur-Seal advantage of parts and sub-assemblies for OE manufacturers saves you time and money, and through collaboration early on in the design process, our experts can help optimize your build and limit the need for dedicated sub-assembly floor space in your facility.
“Kitting is a service we offer because customers who desire less overhead and are working with limited real estate space find it’s less expensive and more efficient for them to have their products brought in already assembled, or kitted.”
Jeff Cooney, Sur-Seal Outside Account Executive, HVAC/Appliance Group Manager and former Director of HVAC
We reached out to Sur-Seal’s Director of HVAC and Appliances, Jeff Cooney, for an overview of what kitting is and the advantages it offers.
“If there’s a unit going out the door and there’s something required to install it, it will come in a bag with instructions and several components. This is a very popular solution for many of our customers, especially in the HVAC industry,” Jeff weighs in.
An example of a loose install kit
The install kit (loose) pictured above is an example of our kitting service. This kit includes:
An example of a packaged install kit
“An example of [an application that benefits from kitting] would be a furnace. It’s designed to be installed in a basement with an up flow, so every furnace has an install kit that goes with it. That kit would include a series of tubes and seals and contains all the necessary components for the furnace exits,” he adds.
And the end result is a product that saves time, saves space, saves money, and allows installers to do their job more easily and effectively.
“A lot of the components… [in that bag] are parts that we’ve made or have helped design, which allows us to remain consistent across the design and production process, as well as be cost-effective with maximum function and productivity.”
Assembled parts offer much of the same benefits as kitting:
Kitting includes all of the components surrounding a single appliance feature neatly packaged in a bag. Assembled parts are very similar, yet different. Assembled parts streamline the fabrication and installation processes by pre-constructing complicated components ahead of time.
Assembled parts can be, and often are, included in a kitting bag. These complicated parts typically require multiple steps of the manufacturing process to coincide in order to produce a complete and high-quality product.
For instance, if manufacturing a tube with a core and a rubber seal, maintaining wall thickness is necessary for the consistency and integrity of the product. By marrying these processes during production, we can ensure the parts fit together as designed for optimum function and quality.
Jeff provides a common example of how Sur-Seal teams can provide assembled parts as solutions in the medical industry:
“Not all of our customers require an ‘in a bag kit’ solution, but we can still supply them with timesaving, floor-saving components, and that’s the benefit of assembled parts.
For our medical industry clients, we supply cut tubes with fittings on it directly to their line because they don’t want to have to buy it, cut it and put the fittings on it. They want it to arrive complete and ready-to-use,” Jeff reflects.
Doug Dietz, Client Account Manager and Inside Sales and Operations Director, agrees with Jeff, and adds that the processes of design engineering consultation, kitting and pre-assembly are very much interconnected.
“There are a lot of cases where we have customers working on a design and we are able to help streamline the design by drawing up 3 parts instead of 12, for instance,” adds Doug.
The kitting and sub-assembly is relevant when we manufacture most or all of the components.
“The earlier in the design process we can get involved, the better. Our early-stage involvement allows us to kit parts and pieces together, consolidate parts numbers and simplify your assembly process.
As a parts manufacturer, the value-added comes when we can bundle your parts together to save you square footage and manpower at your factory and manual assembly line operations.”
Doug Dietz, Client Account Manager and former Application Engineer
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR VALUE-ADDED CAPABILITIES
Brass fittings for an accessory kit
We make part and sub-assemblies for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) and are proud to supply some of the best names in their respective industries, such as our HVAC clients: Trane, Carrier and Lennox.
Kitting and assembled parts services are available for every market that our trifecta organization serves, including:
Pressure Switch Tubing Drain Trap Components
If you want to streamline your manufacturing process and simplify your sourcing, we offer a vast array of diversity in our supply sourcing and manufacturing. Because we produce so many parts and components, we save our customers time and money by bundling the components we already manufacture into easy to use, pre-assembled parts pieces and kits.
Our supply reach is well beyond that of a typical manufacturer, and for over 20 years our team has reinforced its global sourcing arm to have greater reach, reliability and consistency than many traditional manufacturers.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR INTERNATIONAL SOURCING
To learn more about how you can get started with parts assembly, sub-assembly, kitting and early-stage design consultation, contact our expert team.
