Kitting and prefabricating your own work: what to build off the floor and what to leave
The electrical foreman sees installers searching for fittings in every suite. A shop-packed tote could reduce that time, and someone proposes prefabricating parts as well. The floor might look faster while the preparation hours disappear into a different cost code.
Distinguish a kit of identified parts from an assembled component, then test one candidate on the complete effort. Kitting organizes supply; prefabrication also needs the actual technical and dimensional basis for what is built. Count preparation, checks, handling, site work and discarded or corrected material. A better floor rate alone does not demonstrate a saving if substantial labour simply moved to the shop.
Follow one candidate from preparation to installation
- Choose a repeatable package. Identify recurring parts or tasks with a clear work boundary and actual gathering effort. Select enough repetition to learn from, without committing the whole project first. An apparently standard suite may contain different layouts or service conditions.
- Confirm current information. Match the candidate to approved drawings, actual dimensions and relevant technical requirements. Have responsible people assess any proposed assembled component. Do not pre-cut or build from a superseded drawing because its repetition makes the shop operation convenient.
- Define identity and checks. Give the kit or assembly a location, version and parts list, with a named preparer and required checking responsibility. Keep different types distinguishable. A tidy tote is not proof that its contents match the intended workface.
- Plan transport and receiving. Confirm the assessed handling, staging and protection arrangement with the site team. Identify where the package arrives and who checks it. Include return, shortage and revision processes so a wrong kit does not leave installers improvising substitutions.
- Measure the complete trial. Record preparation and checking hours, movement, site labour, waste and corrections for the same package. Keep displaced effort visible even when another department supplies it. Compare equivalent completed scope with the baseline rather than dividing only site hours by quantity.
- Choose whether to extend. Review total effort, cost, accepted quality, readiness and schedule with the foreman and preparer. Revise or stop where the benefit is unsupported. If extended, carry the actual version controls and feedback process into the next packages instead of treating the first success as permanent approval.
Common mistakes
- Treating a kit and an assembled component as the same approval question.
- Ignoring preparation under another cost code.
- Repeating kits after their drawing basis changes.
- Counting only the best correctly supplied suite.
Checklist
The candidate's trial record
- Repeatable package and baseline.
- Current approved technical basis.
- Location, version and content checks.
- Assessed movement and receiving plan.
- All preparation, handling and site effort.
- Quality, cost and extension decision.
Check your understanding
Site labour falls by twenty-five hours, but preparation and handling add twenty. What labour saving does the matched trial show?
