A gourmet gift-basket company was drowning every holiday season: bundle orders hid dozens of components, and pickers improvised. We built an engine that explodes bundles into zone-sorted kitting work orders. Throughput jumped 2.4x, and component oversells stopped entirely.
Typical results
108
Baskets per shift, up from 45
0
Component oversells once live
1%
Wrong-item baskets, down from 6%
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
A single deluxe holiday basket meant fourteen components from three warehouse zones, but the system only saw one SKU. Pickers wandered with printouts, packers guessed at arrangements, and component stock was never deducted — so bundles kept selling after a key jam or wine ran out. At 45 baskets per shift, holiday season meant nights and apologies.
Before and after
Baskets kitted per shift
2.4×Component oversells per month
−100%Baskets with a wrong item
−83%The automation
We built a kitting engine on top of the store and inventory system. Every paid bundle explodes into its bill of materials, and components are batched by pick zone and carrier cutoff into work orders per shift. Pickers follow tablet lists with locations, packers get per-basket instructions with a photo of the finished arrangement, and component stock deducts on completion — pausing any bundle on the site the moment a part runs low.
How it works
- 01
Explode the bundle
Each paid bundle order explodes into its bill of materials — every jar, box and ribbon as a component line.
- 02
Batch into waves
Components are grouped by pick zone and carrier cutoff into kitting work orders for each shift.
- 03
Guided assembly
Pickers follow tablet lists with locations; packers see per-basket instructions with a photo of the finished basket.
- 04
Deduct live
Component stock deducts as work orders complete, and bundle availability on the site updates in real time.
- 05
Catch shortages
When a component runs low, affected bundles pause on the site and purchasing gets an alert with exact quantities.
Starts from
- Bundle orders
- Bills of materials
Delivers
- Zone-sorted pick lists
- Per-basket packing instructions
- Component shortage alerts
The impact
Kitting throughput typically rises from 45 to 108 baskets per shift, about 2.4x, with the same team. Component oversells drop from fifteen a month to zero, wrong-item baskets fall from 6% to 1%, and peak holiday weeks run without overtime weekends.
Questions about this automation
How does a bundle order become a work order?
Each bundle on the store has a bill of materials listing every component. When an order is paid, the automation expands it into component lines, then groups the lines by warehouse pick zone and carrier cutoff into work orders for each shift. Pickers and packers see the result on a tablet.
How does it stop bundles from selling after a component runs out?
Component stock is deducted as each work order is completed, and bundle availability on the site is recalculated from those components in real time. When a component falls below its threshold, every bundle that uses it is paused online and purchasing gets an alert with the exact quantities needed.
What do packers see for each basket?
Each basket gets its own instruction card listing the components, the order in which they are arranged and a photo of the finished basket. This keeps assembly consistent between packers and across shifts. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with the best-selling bundles.