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Arena is useful but has a steep learning curve
September 18, 2018

Arena is useful but has a steep learning curve

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Arena

We use Arena as our PLM system for ECO, BOM and certification management for parts. The system is used across my entire company for BOM and ECO management. This helps us with BOM corrections and certificate updates for RoHS and REACH, and simplifies the number of places I need to look to find the information I need.
  • BOM management
  • Certificate for individual part management
  • File updating management and revision control
  • ECO and revision control on BOMs
  • Very hard to get used to the flow of the system at first.
  • Not user friendly when first learning it.
  • The search tool is very frustrating to use and not intuitive.
  • If a mistake is made when learning, there is no way to change it.
  • New product development management is simplified.
  • CE mark certification tracking is simplified and reduces time needed to show compliance.
  • Quality control is easy to use and update, which helps us keep consistency in our product.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Reputation
Product features were the most important to us. Specifically, the ability to associate a file with an item and link that file to a compliance type for each item. We use this in our compliance certification for CE, RoHS, and REACH. We looked at other systems that had all the features but this, and we chose Arena because of this feature.
Arena was rather frustrating to set up and has a very steep learning curve. I am still assisting my engineers with uploading BOMs and files to the system. It takes quite a while to associate all the certifications with each item and ensure they are correct, but the system is helpful with bulk updating.
Arena was selected because it has the ability to upload files and associate them with a certification for each item natively. There is more control in Arena initially that Odoo, and we needed that off the bat without needing outside help setting the system up. Arena has the features natively.
It is a fantastic BOM management system but clunky. There are setup items that only an administrator can do, such as categories that we had to have our admin update all the time. The revision control is fantastic but also a double-edged sword. If you make a mistake, it will always be there. File revision control is fantastic and very easy to use and very useful for files that need to be updated every year but need to show compliance back as far as the system has been in the market. The ability to upload items and BOMs to Arena is a life-saver when you have 500+ parts in an assembly.