Product lifecycle management software adds collaboration tools; expected to increase configuration capabilities, enhance analytics
Menlo Park, CA — June 15, 2005 ¬— Arena Solutions, a provider of on-demand product lifecycle management (PLM) software for mid-sized manufacturers, this week introduced the latest version of its software, touting its added configuration options, enhanced reporting and analytics, and improved collaboration tools.
Arena added that the updates in the newest version of Arena PLM were put in place to enable manufacturers to reduce time-to-market, increase efficiency and lower operating costs. Because the Arena PLM software is delivered as a service, its new features are available automatically to all existing and new customers and require no software installation, download, staging or testing.
The provider noted that overall shortened product lifecycles, increased cost pressures and global competition have forced manufacturers to build business processes to quickly develop, launch and innovate products. Arena said the configurable features it included in the latest release of Arena PLM, such as proxy voting on change orders, increased flexibility to manage change order approval deadlines, and the ability to specify substitute parts for bills of materials (BOMs), should help users tailor Arena to match their individual internal processes around new product introduction, supply chain collaboration and service.
Furthermore, Arena said its software now includes new change request reporting and analytics to give manufacturers better management of the volume and status of change requests and increased productivity.
"With better insight into our change request management processes, we have visibility into potential issues that could affect time to market," said Mark Devine, vice president of Engineering at First Alert, a manufacturer of home safety products based in Aurora, Ill. "With Arena PLM, we're also able to streamline introduction of product enhancements and better manage our packaging artwork. Arena listens to its customers when developing new features, so when new capabilities and functionality are made available, they're features that we need and that fit into our business processes."
Arena said it also added to its collaboration features that manage intra- and inter-company communication between designers, engineers, operations and the extended supply chain. New collaboration capabilities include increased supplier participation in change order review and approval, and new notification tools for automatically sharing details around change control board collaboration.
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