Greenlight Guru vs. Arena PLM and QMS

Greenlight Guru is well-suited for medical device companies. They have exceptional resources that are especially helpful for smaller, start-up type companies, including customizable SOPs, Forms, and Work Instructions, as well as countless other educational resources on focused topics like Risk Management or Auditing. Greenlight Guru is NOT currently able to be integrated into any ERP systems and therefore may be difficult for the Operations and Quality aspects of the organization if, for example, manufacturing is being performed in-house, and the ERP system is used to document all quality events. (In this case, it would be redundant to also document them in Greenlight Guru - although could potentially be useful to document investigation details.) Greenlight Guru also only allows documents to be uploaded one at a time, so for companies that want to convert their existing DHF or other QMS files into Greenlight Guru for completeness, this process could be incredibly time consuming.

Incentivized

Arena PLM is well suited for part number, BOM and file management. Processing changes (ECNs, ACOs, DCO's, etc.) in Arena is very easy to do and provides great visibility on the status of submitted requests. The ability to communicate with Suppliers and grant them access to files in Arena is extremely helpful. Arena does not appear to be the best suited system for managing software

Incentivized

• Greenlight Guru is designed specifically for medical device companies. In that, the platform helps meet FDA and ISO regulatory requirements.
• Greenlight makes document review and approval easy - navigating the system is intuitive.
• The Greenlight Guru team appreciates unfiltered customer feedback. They do take the voice of the customer seriously and will work to implement feature requests.

Incentivized

• It provides easy, 'login-anywhere' internet cloud-based access to fundamental PLM functions.
• It provides secure access control for employees & vendors (but you pay per person for access licenses).
• Data is effectively 'always backed up' in the internet-cloud.
• There is an option to attach thumbnail graphics representative of each item and create a Bill of Materials view that also displays the graphics to help provide item recognition for BOM readers.

• Periodic review of documents is an industry standard that is missing
• Would love a training matrix similar to the design matrix that links with procedures/work instructions
• Ability to modify or add parameters in the analytics function for better trending metrics
• Ability to modify or add to predetermined "lists" in CAPA, Audits, Nonconformance workspaces

Incentivized

• In my opinion, the Help Pages clearly do not realize that a picture is worth a 1,000 words; need illustrations and screenshots!
• I think the 'Save' button when editing Quality Processes needs to "float" on the active page, not lurking at the bottom.
• In my experience, the Arena PLM and QMS Training programs need to be revamped to include "real-world" examples and working through examples, not simply reading through a training manual.

Incentivized

I really like how Greenlight is structure and how organized it is.

Incentivized

We have so much time and effort invested into Arena. The history of approvals, revisions, etc. are necessary for many of our customers. We also have entire device histories recorded. Having to re-create that on another platform would be a feat requiring years of effort. But mostly, Arena just works. It's transformed our business into a much more streamlined system, resulting in a massive cost and time savings.

Incentivized

Arena has improved their UI over the years that I've used it to make it more user friendly. Additionally, there is a lot of redundancy within Arena (multiple ways to achieve the same end), which makes it easier to learn.

Incentivized

Seems like when I need to access our workspace for an emergency situation, this is when maintenance is scheduled, just the luck of the draw, I guess, and I just wait until the maintenance is complete, and then can proceed

Incentivized

We use a few other software or systems (Silicon expert) and it is seamless to us, pages load quickly and efficiently.

Incentivized

Upon initial observation, Arena Solution appears to possess a rather intricate nature, yet this complexity was effectively navigated during the initial configuration phase with the invaluable assistance of an expert well-versed in Arena, a factor that greatly contributed to our comprehensive mastery and autonomous handling of Arena Solutions thereafter.

Incentivized

The On line training was easy to understand and was very efficient for most of our users. We used the training tools to make sure we use all of the features to their fullest and correctly! After a few weeks mos of our users were very proficient with ARENA PLM and were able to work on their own and use mos of the sections and PLM capablilities.

Incentivized

Pretty straightforward, from OOB

Incentivized

Greenlight Guru definitely has the better/more easily understood UI. I've tried several other training systems and haven't bumped into any of the issues I've faced before, like my training being completed by another person or glitches within the system. Greenlight Guru is a program that doesn't take too long to learn to use and get used to using.

Incentivized

Arena is much better than QAD in terms of BOMs and ECOs and Revision Control. We use Arena concurrently with SAP and they integrate very well together, which is nice. The integration team was really helpful in making sure that the SAP to Arena functionality runs smoothly, and when there are any issues, they are very responsive to help make changes to fix the problem that might be there.

Incentivized

Arena is easy to customize and therefore easy to scale. Different user groups with access restrictions can be easily created and new training plans can be created to support different user bases. Suppliers can also easily be added or items can be shared with them

Incentivized

• Greenlight Guru has freed up time and manpower to focus on improving the quality of our products rather than spending our energy on paperwork.
• Greenlight Guru has enabled a more effective organization system for all records that are required to be kept.

Incentivized

• Decreased the company's time to market for release of its second generation flagship product.
• Decreased the turn around on non-conformance reports (NCRs), supplier corrective action reports (SCARs), and corrective and preventative actions (CAPAs).
• Better organized the company's process maps, DHF, and other regulatory related information so that major audits are completed faster and with fewer findings.

Incentivized