Who we build for
Owner-operated manufacturers, roughly 10 to 500 people, where the person running the shop is also the person who finds out the shelf is empty. Machine shops, metal fabrication, welding shops, tool and die, injection molding, woodworking and cabinet shops, sheet metal and HVAC, medical device makers, custom vehicle and boat builders, fastener and MRO distributors. What they have in common is not an industry code. It is that the count lives in somebody's head, the reorder point is a guess nobody trusts, and a stockout stays invisible right up until a job stops.
How Arda works
A card sits on the bin. When stock reaches the reorder point, an operator pulls the card and scans it with a phone — no login and no account. The scan lands in one Order Queue, grouped by supplier, where a buyer approves it and Arda drafts the purchase order. Scan it back in on delivery and the loop closes.
That is the whole mechanic, and it is deliberately the same mechanic Toyota ran on paper: the signal belongs where the parts are. The reason it gets adopted is that it asks nothing of the person on the floor. A card is a card. There is no terminal, no training, and no software for an operator to log into — scanning is free, unlimited and account-free on every plan we sell, including the free one.
What Arda is not
Arda is not an ERP or an MRP and does not try to replace one. It sits next to whatever a shop already runs: the cards carry the reorder signal on the floor, the Order Queue turns that into a purchase order, and the ERP and accounting keep their jobs. Shops that have no ERP run Arda on its own; shops with one keep it.
Where we came from
Arda was started by Uriel Eisen and Kyle Henson. Uriel ran the problem before he built for it — he founded Austere Manufacturing, making high-performance hardware, after prototyping work in aerospace and robotics. The first Arda customers came through a machinist audience and a podcast rather than a sales team, on spreadsheets and no-code tooling, and paid before there was software to sell them. That order of operations still shows in the product: the physical card came first and the software was built behind it.
What customers get out of it
Flux Workholding reports 90% less time ordering and 100% of stockouts eliminated. Other shops have published theirs in full — what changed, over how long, and what it cost them.
- Case studies — manufacturers running Arda, in their own words.
- Press and podcasts — the longer conversations, including both founders on the shop-floor podcasts.
- Pricing — every tier, and the two things we meter.
Talk to us
Bring two or three parts you keep running out of. In thirty minutes we build their cards with you and set the first minimums, and you leave with the loop running. Book a call, or make free kanban cards first and see what comes out.