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Good Software for Changes and Quality Management
Updated November 13, 2020

Good Software for Changes and Quality Management

Mitesh Bhalani | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Arena

We use Arena for quality management and lifecycle management.
  • Change orders
  • Quality process
  • BOM management
  • Multiple clicks to get to some items in quality process
  • Slow at loading files and updating those files
  • Easy to manage changes digitally
  • Track non conformance reports and associated actions
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Prior Experience with the Product
I was not personally involved, but others in our company had used Arena at another company for quality management and had a good experience. We were able to get all the features we needed in regards to quality management with this product and streamline change order approvals. Our instance has been great for us.
Arena is good for managing change processes and quality processes. We've been using this software for almost a year and had few issues. Some of the navigation can be clunky at times, but the search is strong and almost always gives me the results I need. The newest UI changes are a welcome refresh and have not made it more difficult to use.

Using Arena

Yes, used as a controlled system for FDA QMS compliance.
Our workflows have changed in other ways, but our use of Arena has not changed much. One advantage is that approvals can be done virtually, so even when everyone is apart we can get things reviewed
None really, still using the same main use cases that we used before
Great for controlled quality systems and can help keep complex records for PLM
No real interaction with the team besides their webinars about changes to UI in the semi-annual releases

Lessons for Success

Arena has been great for streamlining the engineering change approval process. It has made it so that everyone can review these changes on their own time and make an informed decision about whether or not to approve the change. One tip I have learned is to search with the * wildcard.
For example, if I'm looking for our AC Power Adapter but I can't remember if it's logged as "AC Power Adapter" or just "AC adapter" I can search AC*adapter and find it
We use Arena to track our device master records for each device we produce. This includes lot information for all the compenents that went into it, software updates, and other testing conducted on the devices.

Evaluating Arena and Competitors