I have been using it for the last three months, it required that I attended a one hour training to learn the ropes, after the training it was very easy and simple to work with it. It's the PLM tool I have ever used.

Since it works on the cloud, you don't need to invest in a dedicated computer server to operate it. It runs in Windows, iOS, Mac, and Android OS so I can easily switch from one device to another and keep track of the approvals on my documents. It's user friendly, which reduced the learning curve and allowed me to ramp up my productivity in a short time. You can upload several documents, and the system will merge them as only one, which is very useful. It's an excellent tool for document control, it helps me to update versions, and nobody has to worry about finding the new version, they only need to know where is the master document.

There are some process that has to be done manually, like for example when you request the approval of a document once all the approvers give the ok, the platform still requires that an administrator approves the process.

ARENA PLM has been a valued partner for us for many years. It helped us create products faster and reduced our time to market, not to mention the errors we preventing because having clear and correct BOM'S the first time was so critical to us.

Creating full product BOM's and parts on a daily basis with ARENA is really easy and fast. Using their great application and integration specialists also permits fast product imports when rolling out new products from a new partner or a new acquisition.

Some features would gains to be redundant in some areas, like BOM'S and parts world, it would ease new user learning curves and speed up creations

I like that things are in steps. Makes it easier.

Our old software let you put in a MPN and will basically create the part for you. I really miss that. Often I forget to add sourcing because it’s in a whole new tab. Also searching can be improved, outs hard to find the parts you want.

The above being said, I do feel we have realized benefits from using the system in the way of organization and being able to process changes in the way they should be.

I do like the Engineering Change function and that fact that with the change function as well as others you can attach files.

I do not like the fact that some of the features needed for quality functions have to be made in the Quality World and require alot of clicks for approvals, complete etc. Currently to set up annual procedure reviews we are having to set it up as a project for notifications to go out 1 year from last revision. One of the most troubling areas for me is that if something changes in one document, such as a revision to a stated value the system does not provide you a list of all documents that the value is found in as some other systems do. For Engineering I think a very good system; for the actual needed quality actions I feel there are some areas lacking. Also have not been able to find an escalation process.

Overall it has been a very positive experience. It easily allows us to review part history, have a single source of truth for file releases, and provides easy to find/read/review BOMs. It also allows for a great amount of flexibility on release workflows and approvals, as well as easy to review sharing settings for releasing parts to suppliers

Arena easily allows for a single source of truth for parts, assemblies and related documentation. It provides a quick way to view part status, history, and release state and easily allows these parts to be shared with external suppliers. It allows for a complex linking of files between multiple parts, as well as being able to track parts through the development cycle

Setup, migration, and training were difficult. Some things still need manual interaction on a daily basis such as marking primary files. Integrations with external software such as Jira and SolidWorks are non-existant, and custom integrations need to be created and maintained. Workflows need to be manually created to match workflows in other systems.