P/N
Minimum
Location
Order
Supplier
For industrial and MRO distributors
Your next visit shouldn't be the first sign a customer is running low. Arda cards let their team signal a reorder between your stops. Keep replenishment moving and give customers another reason to count on you.
P/N
10,000+
orders placed by a scan
$75M+
in parts
10,000+ orders, over $75M in parts, placed by a scan.
Arda platform to date
Your customer never runs out, and your name never comes up
A stockout at your customer's bin is a service failure with your name on it, and the fix is a hotshot run or a will-call on a class C part where the freight costs more than the line earns. Arda is inventory replenishment software that moves the replenishment signal off your rep's clipboard and onto the bin. The card carries the min, the max and the supplier, and a scan fires the reorder the moment the bin runs low: on the days your rep is on site, and on the days nobody is.
"Their system should be digitized, for their sake and ours." — a procurement lead describing a supplier's bin program, r/procurement, 2024
The real problem
Your bin-stock program is only as good as your last site visit
Eight sites on a two-week cycle, a scanner in one hand and a bin-stock sheet in the other. The rep walks the crib, sees what is under min, writes the order and drives on. The whole program depends on that visit landing, and it does not always land. One buyer on r/procurement put the ask to distributors plainly: "Can you spend 5-10 hours a week hustling around my building? And still support your other customers?" When a bin runs dry between stops, the fix is an emergency delivery on a class C part, and the freight eats a year of margin on that line.
Your program only works on the days your rep is standing there
Bin stock runs on a visit cycle, so every site is blind between stops. If the route slips a week, or the fourth stop runs long and the fifth gets cut, nothing signals the shortfall. The first anyone hears is the customer calling to say they are out, and that call comes to you rather than to their own buyer.
The numbers on the sheet age out the moment you drive away
Your rep writes down what was on the shelf at 9 a.m. Tuesday. By Thursday the customer's second shift has pulled a case for a rush job and told nobody. Every hand that reaches into the bin between visits widens the gap between the program and the shelf.
When the rep changes, the program starts over
Min and max levels, which bins matter, which contact to call: all of it lives in a notebook and a route rhythm. Hand that territory to someone new and the next 90 days go on rebuilding what the last rep already knew.
How it works
How does bin-stock replenishment work for a distributor using Arda?
Arda's inventory replenishment software for industrial and MRO distributors puts a scannable card on every bin you replenish at a customer site. The customer's floor scans it when the bin runs low, the reorder lands in the order path you already run at the quantity you already agreed, and both sides watch the same card move. Your rep still owns the account. The rep just stops being the sensor.
Every bin on your customer's shelf, cut by how it behaves
A line card is not a shelf. It is a dozen very different reorder problems sharing one crib, and the reason a single visit cycle fits none of them. Group the bins by how they move and each card sizes itself. The same card works whether the stock is yours until it is consumed or the customer's the moment it lands.
- Class C, high line volume
- Moves with crew size, not output
- Compliance-driven bins
- Shelf-life sensitive stock
- Burn rate swings with the job mix
- Bulky, so the shelf holds few
- Slow spares beside fast fittings
- Electrical and lighting MRO
- Janitorial and sanitation
- Outbound and material handling
- Under the vending threshold
- Consigned and customer-owned bins
Your customer's floor scans the bin
Every bin in the program gets a durable card with a QR code. Anyone on the customer's floor scans it with the phone already in their pocket. No scanner gun to issue, no login to provision, no training visit to schedule.
The order lands in your system
The scan fires a reorder at the agreed quantity, to you, in the order path you already run. Nobody types a purchase order and nobody waits for the next visit.
You and your customer watch the same cards
Pulled, on order, restocked, on every bin at every site. Your program manager sees the whole territory. The customer's floor lead sees their own crib.
Each card carries the numbers you already agreed with the account: the reorder point, min and max, the two-bin system your program probably already runs, and the safety stock that covers your delivery lead time. The math lives on the bin instead of in a rep's notebook.
Hydraulic hose, 1/2" x 10ft
Reorder qty
6 units
Lead time
3 days
Supplier
Central Fluid Power
Safety stock
2 units
Scanned 11:42
PO sent 11:42
Restocked
Start with the one account that calls you most
Card the bins at a single crib this week and let the scans come in. No EDI mapping, no contract for the customer to sign, no rollout project to schedule against your route.
Make Free Kanban CardsFree plan, no credit card
How it compares
Arda vs clipboard bins vs enterprise VMI
Distributors are not choosing between Arda and their ERP. They are choosing between the program they run today, a platform with an integration project attached, and a card on the bin.
CategoryArdaClipboard bin stockEnterprise VMI platform
Replenishment signalA scan at the bin, by whoever emptied itThe rep's walk on visit dayEDI 852 consumption data out of the customer's system
Between visitsContinuous, every site, every dayNone. The site is dark until the next stopOnly where the customer's system records the pull
Who can scanAnyone on the customer's floor. No account neededThe rep, on siteNamed users, usually licensed
Rollout per accountOne afternoon, one cribImmediate, but it does not scale past the routeAn integration project before the first bin
Cost model$0 on the free plan, $79 a month on CoreFree, until the emergency runs startLicence plus integration, sized for large programs
Works with your order systemYes. Lands alongside an EDI 850 or a rep-entered orderRe-keyed by handYes, once mapped
Fits a small accountYes. A ten-bin crib is a viable programOnly if route density supports the stopRarely. The economics assume volume
Proof it works
What the card does at the point of use
These are manufacturers running Arda on their own shelves, not distributors running it for customers. They are the kind of sites your reps serve, and the motion they replaced is the one you are trying to replace: a person walking to bins to work out what needs ordering. Same card, other side of the counter.
2x
throughput
10 min
a day ordering, from 2–3 hours a week
Assembly Industrial
Heavy-industry fabricator of custom trucks and metalwork. A manager used to walk the floor every week to work out what needed reordering, the same walk your rep makes down a crib. "I just take 10 minutes at the end of the day to go around the shop, collect the cards, and now I know exactly what needs to be ordered. It used to take two or three hours a week." — Project manager Anthony Olivas
Read the Assembly Industrial case study →0
stockouts
20
days order backlog, from 365+
Fat Fender
Custom vehicle shop, after two failed ERP implementations. The card motion held where heavier software did not, which is the objection every distributor raises after watching a platform get bought, rolled out and quietly abandoned.
Read the Fat Fender case study →100%
of supplies carded
1 yr
to full coverage
Rossmonster
Overland vehicle builder. Cards went on 100% of the supplies they stock inside a year, one shelf at a time, with no implementation project.
Read the Rossmonster case study →Answers
Frequently asked questions
Who owns the stock sitting on my customer's shelf?
You do, if that is how your program is written. Arda is the replenishment signal, not the ownership record. Consignment stays consignment and title does not move until the stock is consumed. Pay-on-use stays pay-on-use. What changes is that the scan gives you a timestamped consumption event to bill against, instead of a figure someone wrote on a sheet two weeks ago. Nothing in your terms with the account has to change to put a card on the bin.
Does this mean my rep stops visiting the account?
No. It means the visit stops being a walking round. The bin signals when it runs low whether or not anyone is on site, so your rep arrives with the order already placed and the shelf already filled. A two-hour walk down the crib becomes a conversation about what else the account needs, and one rep can hold more sites without the route getting thinner.
Can my customer see the same thing I see?
Yes, and that is the point. Anyone on the customer's floor scans a card with the phone in their pocket, and both sides watch the same cards move from pulled to on order to restocked. Scanning is free and needs no account, so you never have to ration logins to hold the cost down. A program the customer can see is a program the customer defends at renewal.
How does the order get into my system?
The scan fires a reorder that lands wherever your orders already land. Arda integrates with QuickBooks, NetSuite, Odoo, Xero, Airtable, Make and Zapier, plus a REST API, so a card scan can flow into the same order path as an EDI 850 or a rep-entered order. There is no EDI mapping project on the customer side, because the signal comes off the bin rather than out of their system. Your ERP, your pricing and your fulfilment stay where they are. See how the wider loop works in Arda's inventory replenishment software.
What does it cost to run this across 40 customer sites?
Create unlimited items and cards on Free, without Order Queue access. Solo includes one user and up to 10 orders a month after its 7-day trial. Team and Pro are priced per Power User and include unlimited scanning for your team. Compare current plans and billing.
Ten cards, one crib, one afternoon
Pick the account that calls you most and card the bins that run dry first. No EDI mapping, no contract for the customer to sign, no rollout project scheduled against your route. The program is live the same day.
Free plan, unlimited cards, no implementation project.