Arda & Austere MFG
A case study outlining how Arda enabled a small manufacturer of specialty buckles to double revenue, triple production, and spend 90% less time managing inventory without hiring.
Meet Austere: Machining The World's Best Buckles
Austere Manufacturing is a two-man machine shop that makes the world's most performant buckles from a 500 sq. ft. barn. Space and time are two of a small team's most precious resources, and Austere's inventory management system was wasting a lot of both. When the team nearly failed to ship a $3,000 order after running out of a $.02 plastic bag, the need for a new inventory management system became too great to ignore.
Process Improvement Without Process Disruption
Put simply, Austere needed an easy way to never run out of anything again. All of the other tools they found on the market were costly and onerous, requiring the team to scan every part in and out of their inventory.
"Arda is the only tool we found that was practical for our small business to implement but powerful enough to help us grow into a not-so-small business. Using physical cards to track my physical goods is simple and intuitive, and triggering orders by scanning a QR code is so easy that I delegated ordering and focused on R&D. We've launched three new products since implementing Arda."-Uriel Eisen, Austere Manufacturing Founder & CEO
Austere rolled out the system over time by adding supplies to Arda as they needed to be ordered. This gradual approach avoided dramatic changes to the business's operations and still delivered transformative results in just 6 months:
2x
Revenue
3x
Production
90%
Time Savings
0
New Hires
Sustainable Growth: No New Hires, Just Smart Systems
By creating a set-it-and-forget it system to prevent stockouts, Arda has helped Austere achieve rapid growth without taking on additional costs. As an added benefit, having a QR-code accessible database linked to various places around the shop also created a home for new ideas learnings that later become SOPs and drive improvements. Most importantly, Arda allows the Austere team to spend less time on admin and more time doing what they do best, making great buckles.
Never Run Out Of Anything.
