IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM) is an end-to-end engineering solution used to manage system requirements to design, workflow, and test management, extending the functionality of ALM tools for better complex-systems development.
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Arena PLM and QMS
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Arena by PTC is a cloud-based PLM and QMS platform. Arena helps product companies that rely on distributed teams and global supply chains to develop products, ensure regulatory compliance, and respond to customer demands.
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Pricing
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Arena PLM and QMS
Editions & Modules
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Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Engineering Lifecycle Management
Arena PLM and QMS
Free Trial
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Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Required
Additional Details
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Arena's cloud-based PLM and QMS solutions include role-based subscriptions to meet diverse team needs. Their fixed-fee QuickStart™ implementations supports rapid deployment.
While working on a complex project it is important all the needed change requests are handled in an effective manner, this tool helps us do exactly the same, it had great features to manage those change management tickets, making sure to merge the change with existing workflow, prioritize the requests centrally so there are no duplicates. Easy to collaborate across different teams and colleagues across the aisle.
Arena PLM is well suited for part number, BOM and file management. Processing changes (ECNs, ACOs, DCO's, etc.) in Arena is very easy to do and provides great visibility on the status of submitted requests. The ability to communicate with Suppliers and grant them access to files in Arena is extremely helpful. Arena does not appear to be the best suited system for managing software
There are a couple of areas where IBM Rational DOORS is quite strong. First, it is part of the IBM CLM solution so the artifacts developed in this module can be easily available for other functions like development and QA. They can link with their stories and test cases and team leads and managers can use traceability matrix to find out where there are gaps in coverage.
Comprehensive configuration management functionality (concept of multiple streams and global configuration) is available, which can be helpful if you need to implement configuration management scenarios for your product or project. For example, a certain version of a requirement can be linked with one story and another version of same requirement can be linked with another story. This is the unique feature which other current tools in the market don't provide.
It's highly customizable so you can configure the project areas based on your need. You can have your own requirement types, and you can define templates to speed up the process. Comprehensive review functionality is there as well.
It provides easy, 'login-anywhere' internet cloud-based access to fundamental PLM functions.
It provides secure access control for employees & vendors (but you pay per person for access licenses).
Data is effectively 'always backed up' in the internet-cloud.
There is an option to attach thumbnail graphics representative of each item and create a Bill of Materials view that also displays the graphics to help provide item recognition for BOM readers.
Too complex for projects or businesses that don't really need the detail. It is basically overkill.
If you are new to IBM Rational tools, it may be a medium learning curve. You'd also need lots of training from your people, since, as usual, this tool shouldn't be managed alone.
It may seem old fashion compared to Jira and the current control tools used in IT industry.
Arena lacks the capability to edit documents within its interface and requires users to upload new versions of documents when changes are made. This makes it a bit more challenging to collect and implement reviewer feedback
Arena's requirement tracking world does not have the proper functionality we need and was not useful for us.
One of the downsides for us was the capabilities of the native build tools were lacking. The project management and work item tracking capabilities are great and I would recommend the tool to anyone. There is a definite learning curve with RTC as a source control system, and the streams are a concept unique to the product
We have so much time and effort invested into Arena. The history of approvals, revisions, etc. are necessary for many of our customers. We also have entire device histories recorded. Having to re-create that on another platform would be a feat requiring years of effort. But mostly, Arena just works. It's transformed our business into a much more streamlined system, resulting in a massive cost and time savings.
The UI is terrible and not intuitive. Users need training in order to complete tasks. Much like SAP, it's not the clearest tool. The tracing feature is especially complicated because you must write the scripts yourself. There is a learning curve. Also, even the setup, installation, and logging in each time takes a considerable amount of time.
The Arena interface is fairly intuitive, and has very complete functionality. Documents are easily accessed according to prescribed user permissions, and the navigation pane is clearly positioned and sensibly structured. Notifications are sometimes a minor distraction, and document organization and hierarchy display may be difficult to follow at first. After a brief learning curve, perceived usability quickly increases for the typical user.
Seems like when I need to access our workspace for an emergency situation, this is when maintenance is scheduled, just the luck of the draw, I guess, and I just wait until the maintenance is complete, and then can proceed
It does a basic job and has the potential to complete some robust reporting tasks, however, it really is a clunky piece of software with a terrible user interface that makes using it routinely quite unpleasant. Many of our legacy and maintenance projects still use DOORS but our department and company use many alternatives and are looking for better tools.
Upon initial observation, Arena Solution appears to possess a rather intricate nature, yet this complexity was effectively navigated during the initial configuration phase with the invaluable assistance of an expert well-versed in Arena, a factor that greatly contributed to our comprehensive mastery and autonomous handling of Arena Solutions thereafter.
The On line training was easy to understand and was very efficient for most of our users. We used the training tools to make sure we use all of the features to their fullest and correctly! After a few weeks mos of our users were very proficient with ARENA PLM and were able to work on their own and use mos of the sections and PLM capablilities.
The established experience contained in most IBM Rational DOORS installations is only compensated by the high flexibility of Atlassian JIRA. The markets state that Jira is less expensive in the setup. There are many manufacturers that support IBM Rational DOORS to have the big tiers as their customers. Jira has problems in that growth. Jira has more features compared to IBM Rational DOORS. For example in cloud support, IBM Rational DOORS relies on improved external services while Jira abstracts in the most modern way. Jira experts have a different professional background compared to that of IBM Rational DOORS. They are indeed from different engineering generations. There is little interchange in personal and ideas.
I've used SAP, Agile in the past, for PLM, and unless the server is in your office, you cannot configure anything, and should it crash, you as the client are stuck until the issues are resolved. In my 15 plus years using Arena, there has only been one instance where the server was down, and the support team quickly resolved the issue with no loss or data or breach of any kind. Both PLMs are very light on what you can configure for your own company, most of it is out of the box, and you are stuck with it, whereas Arena Solutions gives you much more freedom to really tailor it to your company's specifics and what works for you.
Arena is easy to customize and therefore easy to scale. Different user groups with access restrictions can be easily created and new training plans can be created to support different user bases. Suppliers can also easily be added or items can be shared with them
RTC helps automate incident management workflow which improves our work efficiency. With the integration with Geneos and GSD, we can one click create RTC incident tickets from Geneos with most of the information copied from Geneos automatically and then link the details to GSD for privilege account management if needed.
RTC provides a holistic view on ad hoc production activities. We use RTC for production management. Whoever needs to get access to production due to non-planned activities (planned change is managed in GSD) has to raise an incident ticket or service request ticket in RTC so as to get production privilege accounts.
RTC is also being used to review and approve the usage of privilege account which help us to meet audit requirements. For example, if a user made some database change using privilege account under incident number xxx, an entry will be added in RTC and sent to account owner or production support manager to review and approve.
Arena PLM and QMS has allowed [...] to efficiently respond to Design Changes and process them effectively.
Arena PLM and QMS has completely automated our CAPA process, removing all paperwork and 99% of other electronic files.
Arena PLM and QMS has allowed our Contract Manufacturing Organizations (CMO) to upload current manufacturing data; this puts [...]'s finger on the pulse of a CMO thousands of miles away. No more surprises.
