Good but needs improvement !
Updated December 08, 2020
Good but needs improvement !
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Arena
We use Arena for quality control and is used across the whole organization. It helps us maintain our revision control and change control for effective backtracking of root cause and design verification and validation. It also helps us to keep check of equipment calibration and keep track of decisions pending approvals and helps maintain change control flow.
- Ease of customization and to establish a Quality system
- Excellent customer support
- Easy formatting
- Auto-generate numbers in a pattern
- Templates for BOM creation
- Integration with companies with different Quality system
- We are developing a new product and it helps a lot to take care of version control.
- Traceability for root cause analysis
- Change control and approvals with E-signatures
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
Prior experience of the product was the most important reason. One of our contract engineering firms was using Arena and we thought it would be good for us to keep it consistent with them because we were just starting to set up quality system for the company. It was very important that we had a smooth transition between the companies.
Building and deploying Arena could be less intuitive. Introductory courses could help set up the system in a better way. An online tutorial to set up Arena from scratch could be helpful. It took a bit more time because of lack of resources who were familiar with Arena. An online tutorial of the whole setup procedure would be very helpful in educating people about setting up Arena.
Do you think Arena PLM and QMS delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Arena PLM and QMS's feature set?
Yes
Did Arena PLM and QMS live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Arena PLM and QMS go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Arena PLM and QMS again?
Yes
This is the first time I'm using any quality management system. I had fun setting up Arena with my team and it was a very good learning experience.
Using Arena
We use Arena for FDA regulatory efforts. It helps in revision control of SOPs and test procedures/ protocols and also to store the results from all the experiments which is important to maintain for FDA submissions. With recent improvements in arena it has been extremely convenient to update and maintain records for FDA product clearance.
We work in a medical device company which is considered essential in the current crisis. We have been working in office and the workflow hasn't changed. Arena is not a desktop tool but a browser based application which is very convenient to access from different devices. Even though it is a browser application it has been pretty consistent in keeping the server up to date and we haven't faced any issues with connectivity.
we have expanded arena to include customer complaints. We are a early stage startup with no product in the market yet but arena is a very flexible tool for personalization of the QMS specifically to ones needs. The expansion/ feature addition to the arena has been flawless with less difficulties.
Simplicity and ease of use would be the major drive factors to use arena again.
I haven't dealt with the customer success team from arena.
Lessons for Success
When I started with arena I was new to implementing quality management systems. The customer support and training has been an excellent source to set up your quality systems and helps you along the way. After you get used to as in any QMS Arena is a very straight forward tool for most of our needs.
We are using arena for our whole QMS. I am not sure if we are using it in any unusual way. It is helping us keep track of all the data. We work in medical devices field and QMS is one of the main requirements for the development. Arena seems sufficient to keep track to meet the FDA requirements.
Make use of customer service. They are extremely helpful and resourceful if you are trying to switch your QMS to arena. Make sure you play around in the test environment before implementing anything on the production environment. Take your time in transitioning between QMS as it might take a while before you stabilize on a new system.
Evaluating Arena and Competitors
I would not change my selection process.
Arena Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Quick Initial Response | None |
In the initial stages of arena purchase, they helped a lot in configuring the QMS to our personal needs. They even offered additional sessions at free of cost to help us getting acquainted with the software. The sessions were very informatory and helped the team understand how to make most of the software.
Using Arena
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Convenient | None |
- uploading new documents
- creating a new form
- creating quiz for training purposes.
- navigation from page to page can be improved.
- search functionality needs to be upgraded .