Arena fan
October 03, 2018
Arena fan
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Arena
We are using Arena as document, BoM, quality, training, and project management. Since we have changes integrated with our ERP system with its very expensive licenses, it is by far the most universally used tool from technicians on the production floor to engineers in the middle stages of design. The BoM control and Training Management module in particular have been key in smooth ISO audits.
- BoM control is intuitive and easy. Importing works beautifully. The previous system we used was a BoM control disaster.
- Training management has made tracking our training nearly painless. This was key in our recent audits.
- Quality processes and their easy links to suppliers, supplier items, items, changes, requests, and other quality projects is a very powerful tool.
- The training management module does not have a built in way to drill down to see and individual user's training record. This seems like an easy feature to add.
- No way to link fields/dynamically populate forms. I'd like to be able to choose from between, say, Medical and Commercial and have only the fields necessary for that device type be required or shown.
- More flexibility in reports - tying modules together would be very useful.
- Ability to customize views - choose columns to display in default view.
- Time to getting BoMs into the system and under control has been halved
- Training module supported ISO-9001 and ISO-13485 audits where there had been findings previously
- Project template for design and development GATE process has reduced time to market
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Prior Experience with the Product
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
BoM control was a huge issue in our first choice (it was terrible). We had met with Arena before making the first choice and when we met with them again after our first implementation they had already delivered on a lot of features that had been future capabilities at our first meeting. We also hired a new NPI manager who had used Arena and was very enthusiastic about it.
We implemented Arena including validation in 6 weeks with a lot of support from their implementation team. The deployment was relatively straightforward. We did it in pieces, getting items, BoMs and changes underway before tackling Projects, Quality, etc.
Arena is much easier to use and has never crashed. Arena is appropriate for broad deployment to everyone in the company where MasterControl was not. MasterControl at the time had zero BoM control capabilities. Not sure where they are now.