P/N
Minimum
Location
Order
Supplier
For sheet metal and HVAC fabricators
A missing box of zip screws can hold up an entire job. Put Arda cards with the screws, sealant and hanger strap you stock in the shop and on the truck. Scan when supplies run low to start the reorder.
P/N
100%
of supplies on cards, inside the first year
Rossmonster
overland vehicle builder
Cards went on 100% of supplies inside a year. Including the shelves and the rolling stock nobody had been watching.
The reorder stops depending on the tech who took the last one
A tech reaches behind the driver's seat for a 45/5 capacitor that the last tech took and never called in, and the call is dead before anyone is under the house. Every stockout starts there. Arda puts the reorder in the van and on the fab shop shelf both: the card carries the quantity and either your supplier's lead time or that van's restock cycle, so the refill moves without anyone tallying five trucks on a Friday. Same card on zip screws, hanger strap, duct mastic and foil tape.
The shelf did not fail. The signal did.
A truck rolls, and the part it needed is still on the shop shelf
In this trade the loss event is not a stalled machine. It is a truck roll that produced nothing: the tech arrives, the van is short one part, the job aborts and the customer gets rescheduled. A single return visit costs fuel, tech hours and vehicle wear on top of the billing the day did not produce, and ACCA puts a two-hour callback closer to $650 once overhead and forgone billable revenue are in the number. Parts readiness is what decides first-time fix rate more than anything else, and without a system for what rides in the van the same parts run short over and over.
The van is empty and nobody knew until the crawlspace
A tech drives 40 minutes, diagnoses in 10, then reaches for a 45/5 capacitor that the last tech took and never called in. The call is dead. You pay for the drive, reschedule the customer, and pay for the drive again tomorrow.
A three-man crew idles at the counter before 8am
The install crew loads at 6am against a shelf everyone assumed was stocked. The hanger strap is gone and there is half a box of zip screws. Now three people are standing at a will-call counter instead of hanging duct, and the whole day slides right.
Nobody owns the van, so nobody restocks it
Restocking is whoever remembers on a Friday. Each van drifts on its own, the shop shelf drifts separately, and the office finds out what ran out only when a tech calls in from a driveway. A system that asks somebody to tally five trucks every week will not fix it, because nobody is going to do it.
How does inventory replenishment work for a sheet metal and HVAC contractor using Arda?
Arda's inventory replenishment software works the same in both of your stockrooms, the fab shop shelf and the back of every van. Every bin gets a scannable card. A tech scans the empty screw bin in van three before pulling away, and the reorder fires for van three, not for the building. The office sees every card and every location in one view, so the shop knows which truck is short before the tech does. No purchase order to type, no dispatch software to replace, no ERP rollout.
Ten of the twelve things that end a day were never on the takeoff
A takeoff quantifies the duct, the flex and the liner. It has never once quantified a box of zip screws, a roll of coiled hanger strap or a 45/5 capacitor, and those are exactly the three things that end a day. The same card works on all of it, on-BOM and off, and it works the same whether the bin sits on the fab shop shelf or behind the driver's seat.
- Zip & tek screws
- Duct sealant & mastic
- Rivets, Clecos & self-piercing fasteners
- Connector hardware
- Coil line & rollformer wear parts
- Galvanized coil, liner & wrap
- Van screws, nut drivers & bits
- UL-listed foil tape & field mastic
- Hanger strap, all-thread & anchors
- Flex duct, boots & terminations
- Run capacitors & contactors
- Brazing, copper & condensate supplies
Scan the card when a bin runs low
Every stocked item gets a durable card with a QR code, on the shop shelf and in the van. A tech or a shop hand scans it with the phone already in their pocket. No scanner gun, no login friction, nothing new to learn.
The order fires automatically
The reorder goes out at the card's quantity to the supplier already on the card, whether that card is in a van bin or on the fab shop shelf. Nobody types a purchase order from a driveway.
See every card, pulled to restocked
The office watches which cards are pulled, on order, or restocked, per van and per shelf, without opening a single truck door.
Each card encodes a loop sized to real consumption: reorder point, the two-bin system, min/max levels, and safety stock. On a van the quantity reflects your restock cycle rather than a supplier's lead time. The math lives on the card, not in someone's head.
Run capacitor, 45/5 MFD
Reorder qty
4 units
Lead time
3 days
Supplier
Motors & Armatures Inc.
Safety stock
2 units
Scanned 07:42
PO sent 07:42
Restocked
Start with the bin that killed your last call
Card it today, scan it tomorrow, and see the reorder fire without anyone tallying a truck. Expand across the fleet and the fab shop when it has proven itself.
Make Free Kanban CardsFree plan, no credit card
Fabricators and field crews running on Arda
Shops that put a card on everything they hold, in the building and on the road, and stopped losing days to the one part that was somewhere else.
2x
throughput
10 min
a day ordering, from 2–3 hours a week
Assembly Industrial
Heavy-industry fabricator of custom trucks and metalwork. Same gauge steel, same fastener and consumable burn as your fab shop. Weekly stockouts gone, and the floor went from four builds at a time to eight in six months, without a bigger shop or a bigger team.
Read the Assembly Industrial case study →0
stockouts
365→20
day backlog
Fat Fender
Custom vehicle shop, and they got here after two failed ERP implementations. Cards went on the parts they stock, stockouts went to zero, and the order backlog fell from 365+ days to 20. No rip and replace on the systems they already ran.
Read the Fat Fender case study →5×
production
80%
less inventory held
Rossmonster
Overland vehicle builder. Holdings on critical components fell from 25+ down to 5 while production went up five times, because the reorder signal moved onto the bin instead of onto a person.
Read the Rossmonster case study →Arda vs ERP vs spreadsheets for sheet metal and HVAC
For the parts that decide whether a truck roll produces anything, here is how the three common approaches stack up.
ArdaERP / MRPSpreadsheet / memory
Signal to reorderScan a card, order fires automaticallyManual entry, then a planning runSomeone remembers to look
Covers every stocked itemYes, on-BOM and off, same cardOn-BOM only, misses the restOnly if updated by hand
Shop-floor complianceHigh, scanning is the easy pathLow, floor skips data entryLow, depends on one person
Setup timeStart with one part in a dayMonths of implementationFast, but breaks as it grows
Works with your existing ERPYes, splices in, no rip and replaceIt is the ERPDisconnected from it
Cost to get started$0 on the free planHigh license and rollout costFree, until a stockout costs a day
Frequently asked questions
Can I run kanban cards across multiple vans and the shop at the same time?
Yes, and that is the point. Each van gets its own set of cards for the bins it carries, and the fab shop and the warehouse get theirs. A tech scans the card on the empty screw bin in the van, and the reorder fires for that van, not for the building. In the dashboard the office sees every card and every location in one view, so you know which truck is short before the tech standing in a crawlspace does. Scanning is free and needs no account, so putting the whole crew on it costs nothing extra.
How do you stock a service van so it never shows up short?
You let the bin do the work. Two bins of each fast mover ride in the van, sized to your restock cycle rather than a supplier's lead time. The tech works out of the first bin, and when it goes empty they scan the card and pull the second forward. The replacement is already moving before the second bin runs down. Nobody inventories the truck on a Friday night, and the restock happens because scanning is the easiest way to get more.
What should be on an HVAC truck stock list?
The fast movers that end a call when they are missing: zip screws and bits, UL-listed foil tape and rolled mastic, coiled hanger strap, all-thread and anchors, flex duct and start collars, register boots and volume dampers, run capacitors in 35/5, 40/5 and 45/5, 1-pole and 2-pole contactors, universal thermostats, float switches, copper fittings and brazing supplies, PVC drain fittings with primer and glue. Writing the list is the easy part. Getting every van to actually be holding it is the part that fails, which is what a card on each bin solves.
Does Arda work alongside my ERP or field service software?
Yes. Arda runs the replenishment loop and leaves your ERP and your dispatch software doing jobs, scheduling and invoicing. It slots in exactly where those systems fall hardest, on the off-BOM consumables that never make it onto a takeoff and never make it onto a work order either. It integrates with QuickBooks, NetSuite, Odoo, Xero, Shopify, Stripe, Airtable, Make, and Zapier, plus a REST API, so there is no rip and replace.
How much does Arda cost, and is there a free trial?
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.
Card one van this week, and stop paying for the second trip
Rossmonster got cards onto 100% of its supplies inside a year, including the stock nobody had been watching. Start with the bin that killed your last call, on us, and let the van reload itself.
Free plan, unlimited cards, no ERP rollout.