Arena PLM and QMS Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 8.4 out of 10

Score

8.4 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Arena PLM and QMS are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Ease of Use: Users have consistently praised Arena for its user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate and access information efficiently. Many reviewers find the platform intuitive and straightforward, enhancing their overall experience.

Document Management Capabilities: The document control features in Arena, including Corrective and Preventive Actions, have garnered positive feedback from users. They appreciate the system's ability to manage files effectively and provide audit trails for better traceability.

Collaborative Work Environment: The collaborative work functionality within Arena has been well-received by users as it fosters teamwork and enhances productivity among cross-functional teams. Reviewers value the platform for improving communication and cooperation across departments.

Reviews

221 Reviews

The industry-leading PLM

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

September 5, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My organization use Arena PLM to manage all purchased items, engineer drawings, work instructions, engineer change orders, RMAs, and more that on my employee status level requires. Other colleagues might have more access or limited access due to their role in the organization.

Pros

Has everything all in one place
Ease of navigating through the dashboard

Cons

So far it has been relatively easy to use and been using it for the past 7 years since I work with this organization. I haven't had any other experience with other PLMs to see what else there is to offer.

Likelihood to Recommend

Arena PLM seems well suited for my organization which is a contract manufacturing company. We have all purchased items on Arena and work instructions for production and engineering builds. We provide engineering drawings for suppliers to build our raw material.

Verified User

Employee in Quality Assurance (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

5 Star Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 7, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Hi, I use it for browsing

Technical specifications data, engineering dwgs,

Creating ECOs, NCRs, PNs, Training

Adding suppliers information,

Reviewing quality data, etc.

Overall I use almost each and every tab its in Arena.

Problems:

Sometimes if we upload images of product it cannot be uploaded and a few times it doesn't. In efficient process.

Lack of automation in the workflow nor processes

Lack of full visibility for customers

Scope of use case:

Customer relationship to share documentation

Procuring off the shelf parts based on data sheets

Manufacturing traceability

Personnel SOPs access

Personnel training

Capturing non conformances as needed

Doing project related gate 4 based on project phase

Pros

Training updates and expiration dates
Tasks to finish
Having bookmarks
Downloads data to access easily
New homepage is really helps to track many things in one go
Integrations are good to keep track off

Cons

Increasing size or capacity of uploading the documents/image to at least 25 gigs
Good to have a display of abandoned items in new homepage
By adding a microscopic view if people want to switch to due to eye issues, or using tiny monitors or working in 10 inch laptop by itself

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited:

For product related documentation

Organizing the critical bill of materials

Tracking non conformances from suppliers/customers

Regulated industries (Medical)

Less appropriate:

Small scale industries

Start ups

With less complex PLM requirements

Shri Kota

Project Manager in Product Management at Gener8 LLC (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Arena Review.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 5, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Arena for processes such as nonconforming material review, procedures, work instructions, and part drawings. Arena makes controlling non conforming parts much more easier than what we had before. Before everything was done by paper but with Arena its electronic and much more convient. Work instructions and procedures are reviewed and approved by Quality personnel before it gets released to production. Part drawings get updated by engineering before it hits design.

Pros

No more paper. Everything is electronic and easy to track.
Very straightforward and easy to use.

Cons

The layout can be updated to make it more user-friendly.

Likelihood to Recommend

Arena PLM and QMS are well-suited for businesses that don't already have an organized system. It can be particularly beneficial for those who aren't already using digital software, such as Arena. Charts and reports can be created using data exported from Arena, which helps upper management understand how the business is performing.

Verified User

Analyst in Quality Assurance (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 17, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Creating and tracking tickets for testing activities. Documenting and approving CAD models and drawings.

Pros

Creating and tracking tickets
Approval process and gates
BOMs

Cons

Home page seems to be confusing
Overall system can be confusing to use
It has a learning curve

Likelihood to Recommend

It is well suited for tracking tickets and getting updates on testing progress. It can be less appropriate for managing timelines compared to other tools.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

So many easy ways it could be SO much better but, in my opinion, they refuse to improve

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

March 26, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

<div>Revision control of all parts, items, prints, drawings, etc.</div><div>Finished goods, plastics, electronics mostly</div>

Pros

I guess it is a positive that things don't just disappear out of Arena PLM and QMS
At a high level it 'works' to manage item revisions

Cons

In my opinion, the user interface is absolutely useless for doing anything with the data/info that is in Arena PLM and QMS.
There are no ways to sort or organize anything. In my opinion, current search bar is the worst I have ever used in any tool.
EVERYTHING has to be one externally in Excel etc. To me, just plain horrible.
No way to view/compare two items.
No way to view a BoM and the drawing for that item concurrently
No way to copy a BoM to a different item
UI will not scale to screen size. TONS of unused space on the screen, but since I HAVE to open two browsers to look at two items, that means I HAVE to shrink browser windows...but NOTHING re-sizes. Buttons, info, menus, all end up off the screen.
I think it is REALLY bad!
I think importing and exporting is really bad. VERY simple things will import OK (with multiple gotchas), but substitutes, alternates, reference designators, etc. ESSENTIAL items for electrical (or any complex) BoMs are not supported, and the resulting imports need TONS of manual corrections. In my experience, this entire process is RIFE for mistakes (exactly what a PLM is supposed to prevent and avoid).
In my opinion, Arena PLM and QMS folks don't care at all about addressing the core functional and usability problems.
In my experience, you will only get excuse after excuse from product managers, and customer care folks for the lacking features, and told to 'Use Excel' (Arena PLM and QMS is a database... being told to use excel to manipulate data in a database... tells us all how ridiculous this is).
When updates happen, they only add some obscure feature that 1% of users might ever use (or color changes, or moving menus to confuse the user)... but, in my opinion, never any constructive or useful updates.
See the (now closed) Arena PLM and QMS influencer's page. Arena PLM and QMS tried to make this about 'favorite x-mas songs', whereas users wanted to ask questions, try to find bug work-arounds, and ask for help from Arena (that never came). Result = page was shuttered because, in my opinion, it was not reflecting well.

Likelihood to Recommend

Plus: it stores information

Minus: using, comparing, sorting, searching, organizing that data... in my experience, is literally impossible

David Pascoe

Sr Design Engineer in Engineering at Zonar (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

decent tool that works well

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 21, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Arena is used as an organized go-between that allows us to publish designs that our manufacturer will make. We use it for change management and document control. Additionally, we use it for keeping track of training documents which are important in the regulated industry that we are in.

Pros

Organized ECO process
Very easy to search for things that are stored in the PLM
Very easy to generate BOMs and reports about things stored in the PLM.
Their connectors, such as the BOM connector with OrCAD, works very well.

Cons

Laggy
They add useless features like an AI chatbot
It would be cool to see richer built-in file viewers such as an interactive STEP viewer or a PDF viewer, rather than having to download each file just to see if it has a particular word or feature.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's a great tool to use to build quite complex electronic products well, in a controlled environment. After using them for half a decade, we have never had issues with the manufacturer not knowing what version of what part to build, everything is kept very organized and it's very transparent as to what the manufacturer can see.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

February 27, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

To transfer paper based quality management system to electronic QMS. This include product life cycle management, all kinds of document and items maintain and updates, as well as quality activities such as NC, CAPA, complaints, etc. Also vendor info, procurement type, item categories, analysis of change orders, etc. Basically the source of truth for the company.

Pros

Not paper based
People can approve from anywhere and get immediate feedback
categorization and document control

Cons

lacking freedom in some requirements in change orders
structure architect being professional and point out issues and analytical solutions before launch
indented BOM not clearly documented in help section

Likelihood to Recommend

For a small-mid size company like ours, waiting for feedback can be useful and not useful at the same time. This requires the users to constantly be aware of items that need their attention, unless things are not urgent. However, it help a lot on moving away from the paper system, which is very hard to maintain, not eco-friendly, and hard to circulate for approval.

Verified User

Project Manager in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

Great PLM and QMS software

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 20, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Constant variability, changes and deviations makes the devices very prompt to the need for review and approvals in an organized form, Arena PLM helps the organization get this changes up and running in the field in brief periods of time.

Pros

Change management
NCR
API
Interface

Cons

Search engine
Functionalities within items
Metrics and statistics

Likelihood to Recommend

For medical device use where traceability is key, Arena PLM and QMS is a very strong contestant and helps manage changes and all items in general in a very simplistic form. On the other side, code management for software development is close to impossible with Arenas functionality as it doesn't have any pipeline integration or similar applications.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 20, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PLM for managing the whole production related files for our product..

Our contract manufacturer has access to the Arena PLM and QMS and all the production documents, drawings,files,BOM etc. are based on the last revision in the Arena PLM and QMS.

We are managing the change process via the Arena PLM and QMS.

Pros

BOM management
ECOs
Documentation

Cons

We need different BOM for manufacturing than the full engineering BOM. Some items we want to ignore the child., there is no straight way to view this type of BOM.
The import files option works fine but it not so easy and intuitive.
Compliance details export as far as know doesn't exist

Likelihood to Recommend

The work is very intuitive and very easy to learn so it takes a very short time to share with CM and users that doesn't know the Arena PLM and QMS.

ECO/ECR module: approval process, redlines views are convenient.

Modifying attributes in the items' world and in ECR world is very useful and convenient.

Yuval Givon

Engineering Manager in Manufacturing at Nano-x (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Flexible PLM/QMS System

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 19, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have several clients who use Arena PLM and QMS, In my activities with the client I am a user and an administrator for their Arena, One client is a contracting company for design and development for several other clients. Arena has been instrumental in maintaining the lifecycle of products from piece parts to final product for multiple products.

Pros

BOM management
Quality process (NCRs, CAPAs ect.)
Collaboration with suppliers
Managing Design History

Cons

A separate equipment management world (Cal and PM)
More flexibility on custom reports

Likelihood to Recommend

Ease of use, customer support, functionality. Arena provides a lot of support in the implementation and training when starting out. The customer care coaches are responsive to questions and help resolve any issues you may have.

Paul Schwartz

President in Quality Assurance at Quality System Consultants (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

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5 Star Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 7, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Hi, I use it for browsing

Technical specifications data, engineering dwgs,

Creating ECOs, NCRs, PNs, Training

Adding suppliers information,

Reviewing quality data, etc.

Overall I use almost each and every tab its in Arena.

Problems:

Sometimes if we upload images of product it cannot be uploaded and a few times it doesn't. In efficient process.

Lack of automation in the workflow nor processes

Lack of full visibility for customers

Scope of use case:

Customer relationship to share documentation

Procuring off the shelf parts based on data sheets

Manufacturing traceability

Personnel SOPs access

Personnel training

Capturing non conformances as needed

Doing project related gate 4 based on project phase

Pros

Training updates and expiration dates
Tasks to finish
Having bookmarks
Downloads data to access easily
New homepage is really helps to track many things in one go
Integrations are good to keep track off

Cons

Increasing size or capacity of uploading the documents/image to at least 25 gigs
Good to have a display of abandoned items in new homepage
By adding a microscopic view if people want to switch to due to eye issues, or using tiny monitors or working in 10 inch laptop by itself

Likelihood to Recommend

Well Suited:

For product related documentation

Organizing the critical bill of materials

Tracking non conformances from suppliers/customers

Regulated industries (Medical)

Less appropriate:

Small scale industries

Start ups

With less complex PLM requirements

Shri Kota

Project Manager in Product Management at Gener8 LLC (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience