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Arena PLM and QMS

Arena PLM and QMS

Overview

What is Arena PLM and QMS?

Arena, a PTC business, helps companies to design, produce, and deliver innovative products with a unified cloud-based PLM and QMS platform. Arena understands modern product companies rely on distributed teams and global supply chains to develop products, ensure regulatory compliance…

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What is Arena PLM and QMS?

Arena, a PTC business, helps companies to design, produce, and deliver innovative products with a unified cloud-based PLM and QMS platform. Arena understands modern product companies rely on distributed teams and global supply chains to develop products, ensure regulatory compliance (FDA,…

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  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Details

What is Arena PLM and QMS?

Arena, a PTC business, helps companies to design, produce, and deliver innovative products with a unified cloud-based PLM and QMS platform. Arena understands modern product companies rely on distributed teams and global supply chains to develop products, ensure regulatory compliance (FDA, ISO, ITAR, EAR, and environmental compliance), and respond to customer demands.


Arena states that they have more than 1,400 global high-tech electronics and medical device customers. Companies with complex products comprised of electrical, mechanical, and software designs need a single system to collaborate in real-time. Arena enables every participant throughout the entire product lifecycle to work together–increasing visibility and traceability. This helps to accelerate new product development (NPD) and new product introduction (NPI) by streamlining processes, automating review cycles, and reducing errors to increase profitability.


Arena PLM and QMS Features

  • Supported: BOM Management
  • Supported: Engineering Change Management
  • Supported: Supply Chain Collaboration
  • Supported: Quality Management
  • Supported: Training Management
  • Supported: 3D Visualization

Arena PLM and QMS Screenshots

Screenshot of Arena Bill of Materials (BOM) Management. Indented BOM displaying "in production" item status.Screenshot of Arena Engineering Change Management.  Engineering Change Order (ECO) approval with redlines.Screenshot of Arena Projects. Project schedule with status and progress.Screenshot of Arena Quality. Quality process showing a Corrective Action Report (CAR) with the issue details, affected items, and resolution progress/status.Screenshot of Arena Requirements. Tracks requirements and related product development issues for a complete product picture.

Arena PLM and QMS Videos

Arena’s product-centric quality management system (QMS) software helps medical device manufacturers to deliver safe and compliant products to market faster. By connecting quality management processes to the product record, Arena helps distributed teams improve visibility and t...
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Arena PLM addresses modern product development challenges by bringing product information, people, and processes together into a single Cloud system to speed product development and commercialization. Through better visibility and enhanced collaboration, internal product teams...
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Arena PLM for AWS GovCloud helps companies that are subject to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Export Administration Regulations (EAR) ensure defense-related technologies are controlled, and, if exported, are done so only with proper export licenses.
Siemen's Teamcenter (also sold by SAP), Arena PLM & QMS, and OpenBOM are some of the most preferred product lifecycle management tools by users.

Arena PLM and QMS Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Oracle Fusion Cloud PLM, MasterControl Quality Excellence, and Teamcenter are common alternatives for Arena PLM and QMS.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.5.

The most common users of Arena PLM and QMS are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Reviews and Ratings

(333)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 201)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company uses Arena for document control and for managing quality processes. This includes employee training, change control, NCMR, CAPA, etc. Arena is Part 11 compliant for electronic signatures which allows us to streamline approval processes and cut down time for releasing documents. Our entire organization uses Arena, although some functions utilize it more than others.
  • Arena does a great job with creating a Bill of Materials and makes it really easy to access that information. It can be presented in many different ways to highlight critical information.
  • Arena makes it easy for users to see outstanding action items and to see the progress of a change order or quality process.
  • Arena provides a good user interface for training.
  • Arena lacks the capability to edit documents within its interface and requires users to upload new versions of documents when changes are made. This makes it a bit more challenging to collect and implement reviewer feedback
  • Arena's requirement tracking world does not have the proper functionality we need and was not useful for us.
Arena is well suited for document control and quality system processes. It allows for really great traceability of documents and parts and can create easy to read Bill of Materials with important details. The change control process is well defined and has good built in options to notify users when they need to approve a document. Additionally, the quality world allows for easy tracking of the progress of a quality process. Arena also allows linking of items to changes and quality processes so that users always know which file is the most up to date and what issues are associated with any given part.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BOM management and issuing ECOs. Helps to easily manage complex BOMs.
  • Import files makes it easier to create/update several BOM changes across many part numbers.
  • Easy to search to find ECOs and documents stored in the system.
  • Unable to edit/update BOM on previous revisions of part number.
  • The sourcing and supplier access is confusing. Difficult for companies that are approved suppliers to see part number.
Good for BOM management of complex BOMs. Negative is unable to update previous part number revisions of BOMs.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena PLM and QMS to maintain products, drawings, BOMs, and documentation.
  • Standardized procedural structure
  • Ensures single source of truth
  • Prevents miscommunications
  • Not intuitive
  • Not clear how to take next steps
  • Not clear when submissions are incomplete
I think it is useful for a large-scale production company where you need to ensure uniformity of content, updates, and procedural data.

In my opinion, it is less useful for rapid changes, ease of use, and limiting frustrations across touchpoints.
September 29, 2023

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena for QMS and PLC for product and document management. We use the Quality modules also.
  • Document control
  • CAPA
  • PLM
  • Initial implementation help
All modules we use work well and support is excellent. Document control is good although I wish collaboration could be done in Arena without downloading and working on the document in another space and then uploading it.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Arena PLM in my organization to manage the product part numbers, specifications, BOMs, etc. The implementation of Arena has provided reliable revision control for all documentation, which has been especially important when working with our contract manufacturing and product distribution partners. Arena also provides us with a way to categorize our item numbers by type, which has been very helpful.
  • Revision Control
  • Bill of materials
  • Item number creation and categorization
  • Software revision management
  • CAD file management
  • Improvements to make Projects easier to navigate, change, etc.
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.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena for managing our projects between cross-functional groups. It is a useful single source of truth where documents can be housed and any relevant information can be stored. It allows the teams to ensure they are referencing the same version of documents. It is very helpful in showing an audit trail for creation and edits of items.
  • Linking files that are saved in other software.
  • Providing audit trails and document lifecycle information.
  • Allows cross-fictional teams to work collaboratively.
  • Searching, needing to use keywords and shortcuts to find relevant information.
The arena would be well suited for any size company. Many different industries could use Arena, but I think there are several that are not as well suited. An industry that requires heavy regulation and quality assurance documents might be better off with a dedicated QMS system separate from a PLM. For example, a GMP manufacturing facility with many SOPs, policies, and test methods.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena PLM and QMS for our main document control. Having all our documentation in one spot makes it easy to use and update as needed
  • Change Management
  • User Friendly
  • Easy to use
  • Update process should be more integrated
  • Terminated employees remained access
  • Privileges of each user should be known
Arena PLM and QMS is a great tool for managing your documents in a controlled manner
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena offers a highly efficient and expedited means of accessing an extensive array of critical documentation and essential information, encompassing change control, requirements management, and electronic quality management system (eQMS) functionalities, thus significantly streamlining and enhancing operational processes. Notably, the integration of these comprehensive tools into the workflow emerges as a particularly remarkable facet of improvement, with documentation management standing out as a notably prominent area of advancement resultant from the seamless implementation.
  • Change control
  • Revision management
  • Quality Processes
  • Requirements Management
  • Task management
  • Training Management
  • Notifications management
The implementation of highly effective quality processes, encompassing a meticulously designed change control process that offers the flexibility of customization, presents an opportunity for the incorporation of a comprehensive task management system that can seamlessly accommodate and enhance all aspects of these processes, extending to the management of tasks within Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPA), thereby contributing significantly to overall operational efficiency and quality enhancement endeavors.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Document control
  • upload of materials
  • Safekeeping history of submissions
  • capturing inventory dispositions
  • capturing projects
  • sections in the changes that I mark N/A, I'd like to see those sections pre-marked based on tracking my prior markings in that section - for a quicker submission
Very helpful to control non-printed and printed literature and its source files. Can always trust that what's in the system has been approved by assigned reviewers.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use PLM to track BOMs at all levels and handle ECOs with suppliers
We aim to use it for all products we produce
  • Connecting items across BOMs and assemblies
  • Sorting items by categories and attributes
  • The ability to have different types of requests and change orders based on the needs of the company
  • Being able to create design revisions for items already pushed to production, instead of having to create a new item
  • Hiding abandoned, obsolete, retired items when adding items to BOMs and assemblies
  • Unique revision systems based on item category
Arena seems to be a good fit for a company site that has a large array of article numbers and need to see a way to connect them all together and find information quickly
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a Medical Device manufacturer, [...] is subject to various FDA Regulations and ISO Standards in order to maintain the Certifications necessary to market our medical devices. The PLM module allows [...] to maintain compliance with the Design Controls and Production and Process Controls requirements; the Arena PLM and QMS module supports the [...] Quality Management System (AQMS) which is regularly audited or inspected by the FDA and the Notified Body, the British Standards Institute.

Since the implementation of the Arena PLM and QMS, [...] has realized an 80% reduction in observations or findings during these audits, as well as a 200% increase in efficiency and productively of our quality processes; e.g., Complaint Handling, Non-Conformances (NC), and Corrective Action, Preventive Action (CAPA).

Using Arena PLM and QMS to construct Quality Processes where information is entered into online forms in Arena PLM and QMS, we have reduced the amount of paperwork and MS Word files by 50%, and dramatically decreased errors and omissions.
  • Ability to create custom Quality Processes
  • Ability to create custom reports
  • Powerful Analytics (with the Analytics module)
  • Maintenance of the Device History Record (DHR)
  • Maintenance of the Approved Supplier List (ASL)
  • Facilitation of Training Programs
  • 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.
In my opinion, the Document Management capabilities of Arena PLM and QMS need to be enhanced where it becomes a true electronic Document Management System (eDMS) allowing for the maintenance of Templates, the creation of Drafts, and a true document workflow including review, collaboration, and approval.

I also think the Quality Processes created in Arena PLM and QMS need to have the ability to have drop-down attributes created which list other Quality Processes and can update in real-time as those Quality Processes change. For example, when opening a new Complaint using the custom Complaint Handling Quality Process, the created drop-down attribute for the CAPA Quality Process would be updated to reflect the current list of CAPA Quality Processes such that the Complaint may be "linked" to one or more CAPAs.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena PLM and QMS is used in our organization for documents, design and change control. The BOM features are used for finished goods and all sub-assemblies. Arena PLM and QMS is also used for training plans and control, as well as for tracking approved suppliers and supplier items. All quality processes (CAPAs, NCMRs etc.) are also triggered and controlled throughout Arena PLM and QMS. Biggest business problems that the product addresses is Quality events (complaints etc.) and design changes.
  • BoM control
  • Linking quality events
  • Customization of QMS for the organization's need.
  • The search function: makes it difficult to search for items and documents without getting the codes exactly correct. A suggested search feature would be beneficial.
  • The BOM export function could be refined to allow users to specify which file type they specifically want exported (eg. PDFs, Word, STEP)
  • Further traceability for lot numbers/ serial numbers in the quality world.
In my opinion, Arena PLM and QMS is well suited for products with a limited amount of parts, and making changes were multiple impacted assemblies are made. It is not suited for projects/ changes to be worked on by multiple people at a time, as there is no autosave feature, and one person can work on a page at a time. I think Arena PLM and QMS is well suited for scenarios needing linking multiple quality events together.
Normand Whitehead | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena is used throughout the company and by most departments and all our divisions, here and abroad. It is also used by our assembly partners for parts selection and supply chain planning. Being a cloud-based solution, Arena permits many gains in time and timeliness of communications while keeping everything available to everyone at anytime anywhere. By communicating designs in real-time, Arena permits us to not only save time but reduce errors and roll out better designs faster. Time to market is key, and Arena has helped us with this. Really appreciate all the help so far, keep up the great work!
  • Having partners and suppliers be part of ECOs throughout their lifecycle
  • Sharing procedures and documents in real-time anywhere at any time
  • Provide a secure area for our documents and designs
  • Ease of use and support
  • Some mass edit features could be added, such as changing suppliers in sourcing for all affected parts when a semiconductor company acquires another company but keeps the same part numbers...currently parts need to be changed individually.
Arena is well suited for companies with divisions in many time zones as information is always available by all at all times.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena PLM and QMS is used as the core tool of our QMS. It addresses revision control, training, and tracking of various processes for us. As a start, it brought our company digital. We previously had a number of dusty filing cabinets being controlled by a few select employees with lock and key. Every iteration or Change had to be meticulously tracked and controlled via excel sheets and Data Drive folders with restricted access. Arena PLM and QMS streamlines all of this and keeps changes, and revisions, out in the open so there aren't any questions as to what is the latest and who is responsible for it. Another problem Arena PLM and QMS addresses is files. Purchasing frequently did not have a spec to purchase what amounts to hundreds of small products from various vendors. A clean and tidy file system, complete with approved vendors and PNs, makes this a much simpler issue to tackle. Lastly is training; while Arena PLM and QMS training is pretty rudimentary, at least it is automated and revision controlled. It is pedantic to tie entire groups of employees to an SOP for their review and sign offs where before someone would have to chase them around and get them to wet sign a training log.
  • Revision Control
  • Advanced Searching
  • User Access management
  • Item deprecation is an issue for us (calibrated items coming up for calibration, SOPs up for review)
  • Because it is a web-based system, it is prone to the usual web-based bugs. Hitting the "back" key in the browser instead of the on-screen back button usually locks up the form and requires you to back all the way out and start over.
  • Initial setup. Because our initial setup was so customizable, and done by employees who are no longer with the company/had differing views of what they wanted from the system, we were left with quite a mess to clean up. Not sure how I would go back in time to fix this besides make sure there were less voices in the room, and more out-of-the-box solution selections.
Arena PLM and QMS is well suited for companies that already have some sort of structure in place, and a clean migration is possible. We came from a merged company who should have really spent a number of months (years, maybe) cleaning up our system before implementation. I believe Arena PLM and QMS is poorly suited for companies that have no structure. Its out of the box solutions are not very well defined and it really takes an on-site power user to define them at a later date when a company would have a better hold on what they need Arena PLM and QMS to do. Integrations is a huge deal for our company, and there isn't as many default options you can select or test run without purchase.
March 24, 2023

Arena is easy to use.

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena to maintain the BOM and change management process throughout the company. It also is used as a database for schematics and assembly drawings.
  • The change management process is easy to use.
  • The use of multiple workspaces allow versatility across different departments.
  • I am not sure if it is the way we are using Arena, but I find myself going in circles at points.
Arena is easy to use, once you get over the training of learning a new tool.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena PLM and QMS is used primarily by the Operations, Engineering, Product Development Teams, along with our CM Partners. Arena ties all of our departments together to ensure everyone is on the same page with our product development, launch to market, and most importantly continual improvements. Without Arena, there would be no control as to how our product is configured and ultimately this could result in severe loss of revenue, lessen our consumer confidence, and our Quality team would find it very difficult, almost impossible, to track potential issues and risks.
  • Extremely easy to configure, not cumbersome or overpowering, big plus with todays technology, meets your individual companies needs
  • Onboarding Suppliers and CMs extremely effective ensuring our communication strategy is on track
  • Cloud based, portable, access from anywhere, with no constraints
  • Communicates in easy to understand nomenclature, straight forward, concise and clear
  • Users can easily access information basically at their fingertips, without deep dives to try to find what they need. Tying reference items to each other ensures all the needed documentation is in one place.
  • Would be nice to be able to add graphics and images on the change order specification page, for better clarify
  • Implementation of a change after it is effective is lacking visibility, and has to be managed manually
  • QMS could be a bit more streamlined, so there are not so many steps
  • When an upgrade is done, it can change areas where you were not expecting to be changed and it may not be something I wanted changed
  • When configuring an advanced supplier to an item, if that supplier is already configured, they should not show up as a new selection
  • Duplicating an item, where the same supplier is used has an error when it is selected, few too many steps are added to get the results needed
  • When adding users or suppliers to a change, their whole account information takes up a good majority of the screen, this is not needed, only the user name should be visible for easy access
  • Approvers or comments only personnel used to be very easy to add, employees and suppliers are now separated, more steps involved, when it used to be simple and consice
[Arena PLM and QMS] ties all the departments you want to be collaborating with together, facilitates information effectively, clearly and quickly. With manufacturing overseas, time factor is imperative, the information is waiting for them when they start their day. If something is not captured and locked in Arena, there is no tie back to trace a problem that may have occurred, it is hearsay, and hard to identify. With Arena, there are no questions, it is locked, communicated and all parties are notified. Arena may not be suited for sensitive items, even though users can be limited for viewing, there could be a potential for missing an item.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Engineering and Supply Chain/Operations use Arena for product lifecycle management down to the component level. Arena allows us to have clear version control and traceability during development and into the production of multiple products and controlled exchange of data with suppliers.
  • Customizable attributes and multiple views/templates for things lets users with different focuses or work-flows tune their experience to best fit.
  • Redlining- showing changes in different views of an item between different revisions (not just consecutive revisions) is really helpful.
  • Saving advanced search filters as shortcuts on the dashboard is also really helpful- I just discovered this!
  • Flexibility in what files suppliers are allowed to see within an item
  • Trouble with exporting BOMs with component substitutions included.
  • I wish there was a view that lets you see all of the higher-assemblies an item is part of.
My experience using Arena so far to incorporate electrical components and synchronize the component database has been smooth sailing. Being able to automatically sync BOMs from our PCB design tool is a useful feature that also allows easy integration with supply chain and sharing with vendors. It seems the electrical design workflow has different needs from mechanical workflows, for example, where having flexibility with the revision control and numbering scheme becomes very handy (for example, a BOM for a circuit assembly may have components change but not the overall design- getting to name a rev however we want, 1.1, lets say, and not being locked into a fixed number or lettering scheme saves a lot of time and work so we don't have to go back to the design software and recreate the design output files with a whole new rev. This may have something to do with the particular way my organization has Arena set up, but it was nice to be able to find a compromise since mechanical items are not managed in that way.
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Quality Document Management System and component drawing/bill of materials management. [Arena PLM and QMS] keeps track of our changes and manages phase gate approvals. Not all of our business systems are incorporated into arena such as manufacturing metrics and procurement related pricing information and cost management. It does however allow for documentation of supply chain sources.
  • Navigation is logical
  • Can incorporate and expand on linking different parts of the organization
  • Phase gate system automatically prevents improper approval or purchasing of parts
  • System modifications take a long time to implement
  • Users cannot pullback their own change order submissions without admin support
  • Navigation tabs in change orders make it difficult to access important information without advanced knowledge of the system. Need to be able to put important information in obvious and easy to reach locations.
[Arena PLM and QMS] does a great job of allowing me to look up and find linked documents. It is hard for me to say if the system itself is the cause of frustrations or if it is just how our company set it up during the initial launch. In any case, I don't have enough knowledge of the system to personally recommend it.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena is used across the whole organization, we start it off with Engineering and Quality, but departments like Product Mgmt, Project Services, Sales and Supply Chain, all use Arena.
  • Tracks our review and approvals
  • Tracks our change requests and orders, and history of change
  • Holistic view of the item record, and links it dynamically to other pieces of data
  • I would love the Quality world to have a Quality World only, admin.
  • I find Analytics hard to use and not well supported, had some help trying to build out a Dashboard, but eventually gave up and moved to another tool. Would love it to be enhanced for the user in future releases to make it friendlier of a tool.
  • I have some ideas on enhancing Supplier content, would love to discuss, but includes for example the ability to have Suppliers get notification and participate in change order without seeing each other.
I think for companies who are looking to scale and expand their efficiency especially with a large number of suppliers truly can benefit from Arena. I would say small start ups could still use but not gain the same degree of usefulness, especially if they are single source suppliers.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena PLM and QMS is used across the whole organization for the development of products and internal projects, the QMS. That includes the training management as well as the management of the evolution of the product through the BOM functionality and the supply of each part. This is very challenging and it addresses the problem of multi versioned products, references, and multi-sourcing as well.
  • trainings
  • e-signature
  • tutorials
  • management of requirements
  • less clicks in the UX
  • allow more imports of files
Arena PLM and QMS are particularly well suited to manage the QMS processes as you can create as many templates of processes to the purpose you want. The management of multiple products configuration is easy to do. But, Arena QMS is less appropriate to management trace requirements when the design is not frozen since the mass import of requirements from a file is not possible.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Arena PLM and QMS to manage release & revision control, publishing, and access control for component Item specifications and product assembly Bills Of Materials (BOMs) at all structured levels from raw materials, to various sub-assemblies, all the way to finished & packaged products, beginning from new product design conception through current production. The product addresses information records capture, revision control, sharing access & security, and archiving, but Arena PLM and QMS implementation & use is not without tedious labor, recurring costs, and low time-motion efficiency in the user interface design.
  • 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.
  • The Arena PLM and QMS user interface is very high on time-motion cost - lots of long mouse-moves and extra clicking required to navigate & do common data searching, entry, and editing tasks; it's not as well thought-through for reducing the common tediousness as it could be (make the UX design manager have to sit down and create 50 full & _complete_ new Item records and by the 4rth one, they should be pretty familiar with at least a couple things that could be improved).
  • When selecting an image for an Item record, the user should be able to paste image data directly from the local operating system clipboard instead of requiring the user to go through the tedious process of saving the image as a file and then uploading the file -- seriously, pasting image data directly into a browser-based dialog has been state-of-the-art web design for about ten years now...Arena PLM and QMS is behind.
  • Use of window display space is frustratingly inefficient - lots of wasted display area that prevents users from seeing as much useful information as they could with better allocation of display space. Arena PLM and QMS even went thru a period prior to the sale to PTC, where they spent A LOT of money 'improving the look' but in fact resulted in displaying about 4 LESS BOM line items in the same screen space! (an Arena PLM and QMS sales exec didn't believe my claim about the new display becoming even _less_ efficient in terms of space utilization until I showed him a before & after side-by-side screen clip comparison).
  • When a file type is set to .PDF, provide a global workspace option to ALWAYS apply the correct .PDF identifying MIME type when downloading the file, _regardless_ of what MIME type was used during upload. This is a very frustrating issue due to code bases not being updated when the The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) finally defined an official MIME type for .PDF some years ago. I understand there are a couple arguments for maintaining whatever legacy assignment was used by the original file uploader, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, more current web browsers & plug-ins function more smoothly when the current official MIME type is used for .PDF files. Just make a global option to always use it.
  • Arena PLM and QMS tabs left open on Chrome browser (up to date) over time tend to consume _LOTS_ of system memory resources, and even when a foreground Arena PLM and QMS tab is idle, just displaying a BOM for example, the CPU resources consumed fluctuate between 15-50% !?! That is ridiculous! Even _actively_ filling out this survey form is consuming well under 10%. Arena PLM and QMS likes to say they are compatible with Chrome, but don't recommend it - though Chrome is the most popular browser in the _world_.
  • Some information data fields in some views, no longer properly text-wraps to display the whole field data entry - not even in full screen maximized 100% view - since the Winder 2019 Arena PLM and QMS update (2.5yrs, still not fixed).
  • The Arena PLM and QMS UI can not be quickly navigated with the keyboard & shortcut keys - frequent & significant mouse interaction is required; that's _really_ inefficient UI design from a time-motion perspective for a data entry application. ...and that's one of the big factors that too many decision-making managers overlook when deciding on a PLM/MRP/ERP/QMS application - that is their labor burden costs of employees having to use the tool -- because inefficient application user interfaces cost A LOT of time over a year....decision-makers should as for a good metric to be able to gauge whether efficiency improvements are being made year after year in exchange for their increasing subscription costs.
  • It sure seems like there is _A_LOT_ of relatively 'low hanging fruit' easy improvements that can be made to the Area UI which would significantly improve daily user's satisfaction with the product. ...but over the years, it has not felt like Arena PLM and QMS was very interested in addressing issues, fixing bugs, and improving the UI once customers became locked in with a $$$$subscription. :-/
  • There are more issues I could add and I've compiled a list of relatively simple improvements which I've validated with other colleagues using Arena PLM and QMS in other, larger companies; so, I know most many would benefit and that it's not a list of niche complaints specific to our usage. I have shared the list with Arena PLM and QMS folks a few times over the years, but I suspect it comes down to the budget argument 'prove that these improvements will sell more subscriptions.' Well, I can say for sure that because we have seen so little improvement over the years, I an colleagues advise other companies to make a careful evaluation of all your options before deciding on Arena PLM and QMS.
Arena PLM and QMS is ok if you need internet browser-based, login-from anywhere, cloud-backed-up PLM/QMS service for your company, AND you don't mind being locked into a per-user-account (no sharing accounts) subscription service with no commitments to receiving user interface efficiency or bug improvements (that just seems to be the nature of most IT subscription services). Your daily/annual usage needs to justify the subscription price and your willingness to hand over your entire data system handling to a subscription service. It certainly is nice for some companies. If you're a very small company; you might want to go with lower cost, more manually maintained & administrated systems.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Arena to extract part information from BOMs. It can be scaled to merge into CAD tools to auto-update any revisions made in part files. For eg., every time I make a revision in the length of the dowel pin, the drawing can be auto-updated. Asimilar feature can be used to update material cost and weight in the PLM tool.
  • BOMs for product assemblies
  • Revision structure
  • Smartsheets
  • Updates required in Smartsheets.
  • Compatibility with CAD.
  • Suggestions to reduce part count and repeats.
Good for PLM and Quality to manage ECOs. Helps to connect product design and quality management into a single ecosystem. Not the most appropriate to document build issues.
July 07, 2022

Arena Review

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BOM management is extremely efficient and much better than Excel spreadsheets. Also allows where used querying as well as simple additions of variants. Arena allows full BOM management like a high-end complex system.
  • BOM management
  • Where used tracking
  • Alternate product variants
  • Tracking of SKUs across packaging
  • Drop and drag building of BOMs
  • Back to previous search
  • History tracking
  • Training and implementation could be more efficient. Examples of best practices could be shared and then cloned.
Creating an alternate finished good with minor variations was very efficient. This included color options, packaging variants, and update revisions to existing products.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Arena across the quality, regulatory and operations departments to control product design and manage the Quality System.
  • Bill of material.
  • Quality module - CAPA Workflow.
  • Quality module - Risk Management File/Design History File/Device Master Record.
  • The reporting interface is fairly weak. We export to Excel to organize and sort the data.
  • Linkage could be improved. I'd like to ability to link to closed workflows within the Quality Module.
The Arena Quality Module is very customizable for quality system functions and links to the bill of materials.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Arena PLM and QMS is the sole platform containing all of my organization's Work Instructions and SOPs. It is also how we document training on the documents. I use these documents to carry out my duties testing various products.
  • The search results consistently contains relevant and closely-associated documents.
  • The training plans instantly alert me via email when a document was revised.
  • It's very user friendly.
  • The ability to easily view old revisions of documents would be nice. I still can't figure out how to do this.
Arena is an effective tool for maintaining control of all documents. It's very user-friendly. If I wasn't in a regulated industry that didn't require such strict controls, Arena might be too powerful.
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