Arena - More than a supplier-customer relationship!
Updated August 17, 2023
Arena - More than a supplier-customer relationship!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Arena PLM and QMS
Arena is used throughout the company and by most departments and all our divisions, here and abroad. It is also used by our assembly partners for parts selection and supply chain planning. Being a cloud-based solution, Arena permits many gains in time and timeliness of communications while keeping everything available to everyone at anytime anywhere. By communicating designs in real-time, Arena permits us to not only save time but reduce errors and roll out better designs faster. Time to market is key, and Arena has helped us with this. Really appreciate all the help so far, keep up the great work!
Pros
- Having partners and suppliers be part of ECOs throughout their lifecycle
- Sharing procedures and documents in real-time anywhere at any time
- Provide a secure area for our documents and designs
- Ease of use and support
Cons
- Some mass edit features could be added, such as changing suppliers in sourcing for all affected parts when a semiconductor company acquires another company but keeps the same part numbers...currently parts need to be changed individually.
- It has reduced our New Product Introduction time by releasing BOMs, parts, and documents faster and more efficiently to all our suppliers and partners simultaneously.
- Time to market has been faster and more efficient also; processes and procedures are clear and easy to follow.
Arena support and help have been tremendous since our partnership began. Doug J. and Joshua R. have been key players with supporting Trilliant and adding value to Arena by providing innovative solutions, tips, and shortcuts and adding tools to improve our efficiency and our ability to harness some of the power that Arena has. This allows us to tap into Arena's powerful features that would otherwise be unknown or would have taken a lot more time to find. They have given us the trust and confidence to reach out and to continue to use Arena more and roll it out through more users at a faster pace and with a better payback to us. It has been and continues to be a WIN-WIN relationship. Many thanks to all Arena support personnel for all their continued help and assistance.
I was not involved with SAP when it was evaluated but feedback from others SAP was chosen without full knowledge of ARENA's capabilities in these areas.
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
Using Arena PLM and QMS
75 - Supply Chain, certification, Firmware Engineering, Software Engineering, Quality support, Hardware Engineering, Electrical engineering.
5 - Technicians, engineering managers and engineers
- Different suppliers and partners access
- Integration of merger and acquisition entities database into Arena
- Fast and easy roll out of licenses at overseas locations
- Recognition of Arena when applying for ISO certification/renewal
- Use of Arena in conjunction with other software/tools such as SolidWorks, Silicon Expert, etc.
Lessons for Success
Evaluating Arena PLM and QMS and Competitors
Yes - We were using back in 2007 Lotus and Excel to do most of our PLM...needless to say that ARENA was a MAJOR upgrade for us!
I would probably recommend to my management to skip a few of the other PLM providers we evaluated and narrow it to 2 or 3, including ARENA in the selection process!
Arena PLM and QMS Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - Trial, test and production.
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - None that I remember, everything was done smoothly and effortlessly.
- Training
- Getting used to the environment.
Arena PLM and QMS Training
Configuring Arena PLM and QMS
I think ARENA PLM is already at the best practices level IMO!
Some - we have done small customizations to the interface - To get reports and applications we did not have and it was easy to do with the expert help from ARENA!
No - we have not done any custom code
None that comes to mind.
Arena PLM and QMS Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Yes
In some cases where time to market is of essence, if we do not have a direct path to the solution we will ask ARENA support team...in 90% of these cases, our ARENA support team or Joshua Robbins, Doug Johnston and Lori Austin have chipped in and given us the solution free of charge. In some more technical and time sensitive issues, we have required and payed for premium services and every time we did, Trilliant got their moneys worth and more. Arena support team are extremely knowledgeable, efficient and will go the extra mile to satisfy us. Time and money wisely invested...my two cents!
Yes - Only once that I can remember and it was due to an internet provider issue...it was quickly resolved.
Several times but once that occurred late last year. We needed to have parts that were OBSOLETED but that appeared ONLY in OBSOLETED and Abandoned BOM's. We worked with Doug Johnston who assisted us in outputting a huge data file which with his assistance, could filter out non needed parts and get to OBSOLETE parts THAT were ONLY contained in OBSOLETED parts. The process was even automated to get it downloaded in our ARENA dashboard automatically once a month. By doing this, we were able to effectively and quickly remove obsoleted parts from our inventory and from our partners inventory.
Using Arena PLM and QMS
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Searches with Advance fucntion
- BOM Compare
- Redline feature
- Searching for ECO title in an ECO list opened in a screen...ECO title width limited and truncates part of the title
Comments
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