Item: Arena PLM and QMS
Rating: 8
Author: Christine Pompa

Overall Satisfaction with Arena

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Arena throughout our entire organization. It helps ensure all of our documentation is in one place and we know what the latest version is of the item that we are viewing.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Arena allows for easy customization and this is beneficial because the company can set up the PLM to meet their specific needs and tailor it to their business.
The interface is very user friendly and this helps to eliminate the apprehension of using a system for an employee who is not a computer expert.
Policies and user groups allow administrators to control what certain employees can and cannot see. This control keeps data accuracy intact and helps to create a structured approach to data acquisition.

Cons

It is difficult to move from the demo environment to the live environment when setting up the system. The data can be transferred but the specific configurations cannot.
There seems to be so many options to customize configurations with the exception of notifications. It would be nice to be able to modify the automated notifications that users receive in certain cases (add additional employees to notifications, etc.).
The Quality world, in my opinion, is a bit limited in how you can customize it.
Notifications should be able to be sent to supervisors and other interested parties in the Training world when employees are late in completing their training assignments.
Feedbacks that result in potential future enhancements have no follow up with the submitter so you never know whether your suggestions will be implemented or not.

Return on Investment

Time to process a change - significantly reduced
Quality of documentation - significantly improved
Errors in using wrong documentation - significantly reduced

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability

I liked the simple user interface and the customization flexibility of Arena.

Key Insights

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

Support Rating

They are quick to get back to you when you have a question. However, to become a 10, they should provide feedback on future enhancements / suggestions, as these tend to disappear into a black hole.

Usability

Very user friendly.

Alternatives Considered

Omnify

Cloud based with a much cleaner UI.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think Arena is very well suited for manufacturing document control, change management, etc. I think it is lacking in the projects for true project tracking - it seems to be clunky.

Lessons for Success

Comments

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Alaine Portnoy
(Vendor Representative) commented 5 years ago
Christine, thank you for providing such a thorough and honest review of Arena! We know you're a big advocate and appreciate your input on both the pros and cons.

I love Arena!