Arena PLM and QMS Reviews & Insights

Score8.7 out of 10

360 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Arena PLM and QMS are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Ease of Use: Users have consistently praised Arena for its user-friendly interface, making it easy to navigate and access information efficiently. Many reviewers find the platform intuitive and straightforward, enhancing their overall experience.

Document Management Capabilities: The document control features in Arena, including Corrective and Preventive Actions, have garnered positive feedback from users. They appreciate the system's ability to manage files effectively and provide audit trails for better traceability.

Collaborative Work Environment: The collaborative work functionality within Arena has been well-received by users as it fosters teamwork and enhances productivity among cross-functional teams. Reviewers value the platform for improving communication and cooperation across departments.

Reviews

221 Reviews

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

April 17, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Creating and tracking tickets for testing activities. Documenting and approving CAD models and drawings.

Pros

Creating and tracking tickets
Approval process and gates
BOMs

Cons

Home page seems to be confusing
Overall system can be confusing to use
It has a learning curve

Likelihood to Recommend

It is well suited for tracking tickets and getting updates on testing progress. It can be less appropriate for managing timelines compared to other tools.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

So many easy ways it could be SO much better but, in my opinion, they refuse to improve

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

March 26, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Revision control of all parts, items, prints, drawings, etc.

Finished goods, plastics, electronics mostly

Pros

I guess it is a positive that things don't just disappear out of Arena PLM and QMS
At a high level it 'works' to manage item revisions

Cons

In my opinion, the user interface is absolutely useless for doing anything with the data/info that is in Arena PLM and QMS.
There are no ways to sort or organize anything. In my opinion, current search bar is the worst I have ever used in any tool.
EVERYTHING has to be one externally in Excel etc. To me, just plain horrible.
No way to view/compare two items.
No way to view a BoM and the drawing for that item concurrently
No way to copy a BoM to a different item
UI will not scale to screen size. TONS of unused space on the screen, but since I HAVE to open two browsers to look at two items, that means I HAVE to shrink browser windows...but NOTHING re-sizes. Buttons, info, menus, all end up off the screen.
I think it is REALLY bad!
I think importing and exporting is really bad. VERY simple things will import OK (with multiple gotchas), but substitutes, alternates, reference designators, etc. ESSENTIAL items for electrical (or any complex) BoMs are not supported, and the resulting imports need TONS of manual corrections. In my experience, this entire process is RIFE for mistakes (exactly what a PLM is supposed to prevent and avoid).
In my opinion, Arena PLM and QMS folks don't care at all about addressing the core functional and usability problems.
In my experience, you will only get excuse after excuse from product managers, and customer care folks for the lacking features, and told to 'Use Excel' (Arena PLM and QMS is a database... being told to use excel to manipulate data in a database... tells us all how ridiculous this is).
When updates happen, they only add some obscure feature that 1% of users might ever use (or color changes, or moving menus to confuse the user)... but, in my opinion, never any constructive or useful updates.
See the (now closed) Arena PLM and QMS influencer's page. Arena PLM and QMS tried to make this about 'favorite x-mas songs', whereas users wanted to ask questions, try to find bug work-arounds, and ask for help from Arena (that never came). Result = page was shuttered because, in my opinion, it was not reflecting well.

Likelihood to Recommend

Plus: it stores information
Minus: using, comparing, sorting, searching, organizing that data... in my experience, is literally impossible

David Pascoe

Sr Design Engineer in Engineering at Zonar (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile

decent tool that works well

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

March 21, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Arena is used as an organized go-between that allows us to publish designs that our manufacturer will make. We use it for change management and document control. Additionally, we use it for keeping track of training documents which are important in the regulated industry that we are in.

Pros

Organized ECO process
Very easy to search for things that are stored in the PLM
Very easy to generate BOMs and reports about things stored in the PLM.
Their connectors, such as the BOM connector with OrCAD, works very well.

Cons

Laggy
They add useless features like an AI chatbot
It would be cool to see richer built-in file viewers such as an interactive STEP viewer or a PDF viewer, rather than having to download each file just to see if it has a particular word or feature.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's a great tool to use to build quite complex electronic products well, in a controlled environment. After using them for half a decade, we have never had issues with the manufacturer not knowing what version of what part to build, everything is kept very organized and it's very transparent as to what the manufacturer can see.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

February 27, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

To transfer paper based quality management system to electronic QMS. This include product life cycle management, all kinds of document and items maintain and updates, as well as quality activities such as NC, CAPA, complaints, etc. Also vendor info, procurement type, item categories, analysis of change orders, etc. Basically the source of truth for the company.

Pros

Not paper based
People can approve from anywhere and get immediate feedback
categorization and document control

Cons

lacking freedom in some requirements in change orders
structure architect being professional and point out issues and analytical solutions before launch
indented BOM not clearly documented in help section

Likelihood to Recommend

For a small-mid size company like ours, waiting for feedback can be useful and not useful at the same time. This requires the users to constantly be aware of items that need their attention, unless things are not urgent. However, it help a lot on moving away from the paper system, which is very hard to maintain, not eco-friendly, and hard to circulate for approval.

Verified User

Project Manager in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

Great PLM and QMS software

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 20, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Constant variability, changes and deviations makes the devices very prompt to the need for review and approvals in an organized form, Arena PLM helps the organization get this changes up and running in the field in brief periods of time.

Pros

Change management
NCR
API
Interface

Cons

Search engine
Functionalities within items
Metrics and statistics

Likelihood to Recommend

For medical device use where traceability is key, Arena PLM and QMS is a very strong contestant and helps manage changes and all items in general in a very simplistic form. On the other side, code management for software development is close to impossible with Arenas functionality as it doesn't have any pipeline integration or similar applications.

Verified User

Engineer in Engineering (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 20, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PLM for managing the whole production related files for our product..
Our contract manufacturer has access to the Arena PLM and QMS and all the production documents, drawings,files,BOM etc. are based on the last revision in the Arena PLM and QMS.
We are managing the change process via the Arena PLM and QMS.

Pros

BOM management
ECOs
Documentation

Cons

We need different BOM for manufacturing than the full engineering BOM. Some items we want to ignore the child., there is no straight way to view this type of BOM.
The import files option works fine but it not so easy and intuitive.
Compliance details export as far as know doesn't exist

Likelihood to Recommend

The work is very intuitive and very easy to learn so it takes a very short time to share with CM and users that doesn't know the Arena PLM and QMS.
ECO/ECR module: approval process, redlines views are convenient.
Modifying attributes in the items' world and in ECR world is very useful and convenient.

Yuval Givon

Engineering Manager in Manufacturing at Nano-x (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Flexible PLM/QMS System

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 19, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have several clients who use Arena PLM and QMS, In my activities with the client I am a user and an administrator for their Arena, One client is a contracting company for design and development for several other clients. Arena has been instrumental in maintaining the lifecycle of products from piece parts to final product for multiple products.

Pros

BOM management
Quality process (NCRs, CAPAs ect.)
Collaboration with suppliers
Managing Design History

Cons

A separate equipment management world (Cal and PM)
More flexibility on custom reports

Likelihood to Recommend

Ease of use, customer support, functionality. Arena provides a lot of support in the implementation and training when starting out. The customer care coaches are responsive to questions and help resolve any issues you may have.

Paul Schwartz

President in Quality Assurance at Quality System Consultants (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

Sufficient System for Most Uses and Functions

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

August 8, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It functions as a quality management system, where new revisions are updated and posted, and change orders are initiated and executed. it helps allow the user to have confidence they are using the correct revision when downloading a work instruction, form or SOP to their desktop. The revisions and changes themselves, as well as who has ownership over what is also displayed.

Pros

Change Orders are displayed clearly and with ownership
Items can be filtered out by part number, form or WI name, or group
Updated trainings are emailed to users when needed to retrain on a particular task and these can be further divided into subgroups

Cons

When using the search feature, the system sometimes defaults to what was originally searched. As an example, searing "Item 1" and when refreshing to search a different item, "item 1" returns to the search bar when it should just clear.
The training modules, though helpful, continuously recycle order based on what was clicked on which can be quite confusing for training numbers that are close in number.
The home page of trainings does not show which modules are completed and which are not. Rather, the user has to select each module individually to see, which is burdensome.

Likelihood to Recommend

Well suited for shifting to a more centralized quality management system, where changes are initiated and executed by all stakeholders. It would probably not be as helpful for documents that do not get routinely updated or revised, where a simple file storage solution would be more appropriate than a system such as Arena PLM and QMS.

Verified User

Employee in Manufacturing (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Arena PLM and QMS Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

August 5, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

For our organization, Arena PLM and QMS is the base for all current information. As for problems, we don't have many except when trying to implement new forms and trying to figure out the best way to go about them. For example, a form that we are now implementing for product revisions, we are trying different things depending on the situation in accordance to what might work best. There might be a right way to do it, but figuring out what works best for us is a trial and error.

Pros

Product history/revisions
storing documentation based on part
Showing product BOM/ having products showing individual components
The sandbox is a great feature

Cons

Being able to export products and their components would be amazing
Having a chat/ email functionality from Arena PLM and QMS would be helpful
Having to click the pencil before editing can get tiresome if we do it multiple times

Likelihood to Recommend

Keeping track of the life cycle of a product is a great feature. This is a great feature when we have to change products/ vendors and keep track of all the changes. A scenario when I think Arena PLM and QMS can be less appropriate would be when trying to edit documents like drawings from solidworks and trying to tie the contents in the drawings to a searchable feature.

Verified User

Administrative Assistant in Research & Development (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Feedback

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 25, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Much of our training and operating procedure documents are on Arena PLM and QMS. We encourage our operators to regularly review their documents, bookmark them to their dashboards, and be able to bring them up for reference during their position on our production line.

Pros

Easy to find documentation and reference material
Easy to organize and group regularly used forms
Keeps track of my training

Cons

Finding new training materials is a bit obtuse
Starts on training tab by default, while I would prefer home
I find a number of features that have no obvious function

Likelihood to Recommend

When going to print new labels for our packing department, I can pull up the template quite easily. Though it's not always obvious where to find additional instructions.

Verified User

Employee in Manufacturing (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Loading Reviews List....

So many easy ways it could be SO much better but, in my opinion, they refuse to improve

Rating: 2 out of 10

Incentivized

March 26, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Revision control of all parts, items, prints, drawings, etc.

Finished goods, plastics, electronics mostly

Pros

I guess it is a positive that things don't just disappear out of Arena PLM and QMS
At a high level it 'works' to manage item revisions

Cons

In my opinion, the user interface is absolutely useless for doing anything with the data/info that is in Arena PLM and QMS.
There are no ways to sort or organize anything. In my opinion, current search bar is the worst I have ever used in any tool.
EVERYTHING has to be one externally in Excel etc. To me, just plain horrible.
No way to view/compare two items.
No way to view a BoM and the drawing for that item concurrently
No way to copy a BoM to a different item
UI will not scale to screen size. TONS of unused space on the screen, but since I HAVE to open two browsers to look at two items, that means I HAVE to shrink browser windows...but NOTHING re-sizes. Buttons, info, menus, all end up off the screen.
I think it is REALLY bad!
I think importing and exporting is really bad. VERY simple things will import OK (with multiple gotchas), but substitutes, alternates, reference designators, etc. ESSENTIAL items for electrical (or any complex) BoMs are not supported, and the resulting imports need TONS of manual corrections. In my experience, this entire process is RIFE for mistakes (exactly what a PLM is supposed to prevent and avoid).
In my opinion, Arena PLM and QMS folks don't care at all about addressing the core functional and usability problems.
In my experience, you will only get excuse after excuse from product managers, and customer care folks for the lacking features, and told to 'Use Excel' (Arena PLM and QMS is a database... being told to use excel to manipulate data in a database... tells us all how ridiculous this is).
When updates happen, they only add some obscure feature that 1% of users might ever use (or color changes, or moving menus to confuse the user)... but, in my opinion, never any constructive or useful updates.
See the (now closed) Arena PLM and QMS influencer's page. Arena PLM and QMS tried to make this about 'favorite x-mas songs', whereas users wanted to ask questions, try to find bug work-arounds, and ask for help from Arena (that never came). Result = page was shuttered because, in my opinion, it was not reflecting well.

Likelihood to Recommend

Plus: it stores information
Minus: using, comparing, sorting, searching, organizing that data... in my experience, is literally impossible

David Pascoe

Sr Design Engineer in Engineering at Zonar (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

View profile