1. Home
  2. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software
  3. Arena PLM and QMS Reviews
  4. User Review of Arena PLM and QMS
Small company review of Arena
September 24, 2018

Small company review of Arena

Ming Tran | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Arena

We are in the process of launching its use within the Ops department and expect to roll out to the entire organization. We have challenges with the following and expect Arena to address all these areas:
- Product information not housed in a central location, accessible by all
- Changes not tracked or tracked in a timely manner to suppliers, internal team
- Constant changes to product definition and costs without visibility to stakeholders
- Individuals not held accountable to deadlines, tasks that affect others
  • "Where used" function in the bill of materials is a fast way to see the impact of any change
  • "Compare" function in the bill of materials is a convenient way to pick out the differences across SKUs that look the same at the top level
  • Search capabilities are robust. If you know how to use them, you can locate anything.
  • Maybe I just haven't discovered it, but I want to be able to capture the cost by supplier for each item, and have it roll up to the top level total cost of goods for a finished product.
  • It is too easy to have duplication of parts or files which causes clutter. A person has to know exactly how to find something to add to a BOM. It is too easy to conduct a search poorly due to lack of knowledge, assume the part/file doesn't exist, then create duplicates for no reason.
  • Email messages that deploy to Approvers, etc. are rudimentary and not easy to read. It is a turn off for people who expect HTML, visually pleasing email messages. If not easy, familiar to read, they will not spur quick action.
  • None yet
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Third-party Reviews
We had an executive manager who had had prior experience with Arena and spoke well of its usability. With PLM systems, this is key because we had no idea what we needed and how to build one that would work for our business.
We've not yet fully implemented but I think it will be because we have expert users who can tell people exactly how to find what they're looking for.
I've not used any other system except a customized intranet in my last company. It worked well for what I needed. I wasn't aware of any issues. When I was looking for a solution for my current company, I wanted to find something that would work like a company intranet.
Arena is well suited for companies that can organize their information to build a good system for themselves. But you need internal people who understand how to build it in a way that works for the team, how they work and the business.

It is best for keeping track of product parts/versions and for those who utilize data/text to organize themselves. It is not well suited for people who need visuals to understand the same info.