CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

8 November 2005

Company News

Arena Solutions Launches Arena Supplier Marketplace, a Community of Suppliers Using On-Demand PLM to Create New Revenue Streams

Arena Solutions announced the launch of the Arena Supplier Marketplace, an online directory of product design firms, contract manufacturers, component suppliers, and fabricators trained and certified on Arena PLM. The Supplier Marketplace directory will be accessible to all users of Arena PLM from within the application, as well as the company's website, allowing companies to find, connect with, and engage in new supply chain partnerships. At the time of the launch, nearly 100 suppliers have signed up as Charter Members of the Arena Supplier Marketplace.

"Collaboration between OEMs and suppliers is pivotal to successfully bringing products to market on time and on budget, especially in today's global, outsourced manufacturing environment," said Michael Topolovac, CEO of Arena Solutions. "Suppliers provide integral products and services to Arena's manufacturing subscribers and are valued members of the Arena community. In launching the Arena Supplier Marketplace, we're opening up new opportunities for global suppliers and OEMs to interact and engage. It's a dual value proposition - for suppliers seeking new customer relationships and a lower cost way to conduct business - as well as Arena manufacturers seeking alternate sourcing relationships or parts suppliers for new product introduction."

To date, more than 2,000 individual supplier users have been invited by more than 15,000 manufacturing, engineering, and purchasing professionals to use Arena PLM to communicate vital product information and collaborate in an on-demand environment that is cost-free to the supplier. In today's manufacturing environment, this type of outsourcing has become a requirement. Arena PLM enables companies of any size to leverage the global supply chain to remain a vibrant and successful force in the U.S. economy.

Arena's on-demand PLM application moves the relationship between supplier and OEM beyond transactional into a true partnership by easily and cost-effectively facilitating collaboration throughout the product development cycle. With the introduction of the Supplier Marketplace, Arena now provides manufacturers and suppliers with the opportunity to easily seek out and engage in new relationships to help grow their businesses. With instant provisioning through its on-demand business model and free online training for Supplier Marketplace participants, manufacturers can engage a new supplier in the matter of minutes. The increasing rate of new product introduction and pending compliance regulations - such as RoHS - are driving the need for greater supplier intimacy and the ability to quickly find, qualify, and engage with new suppliers for alternate sourcing.

Suppliers using Arena PLM to interact with their OEM customers lower their cost of doing business and become a valued partner, participating in the entire product lifecycle, from inception to innovation. This positively impacts the entire manufacturing community with long-term benefits for suppliers and manufacturers alike.

"Some of our best customers are the ones that use Arena," said Mike Keer, director of operations for Paramit, a company that provides specialized electronic manufacturing services. "In utilizing Arena PLM, we're able to easily collaborate with these companies and have real-time insight into product information and proactive participation in the change management and request processes."

Because Arena PLM software is delivered as a service, every user has access to the application with no software installations or downloads, no costly deployments, and no ongoing IT maintenance. Freed from the hassles of managing IT, manufacturers and their suppliers are able to focus 100 percent of resources on product innovation. The on-demand nature of the Arena application encourages the creation of communities of suppliers and manufacturers and facilitates enhanced interaction among those entities. Arena PLM is a web-based application that enables OEMs to work more in partnership and communicate easily with their geographically distributed suppliers, creating a competitive advantage for both the suppliers and OEMs.

Participants in the Arena Supplier Marketplace receive:

•  Free training and certification on the Arena PLM application.

•  A marketing presence on the Arena Supplier Marketplace.

•  Access to hundreds of manufacturers and thousands of subscribers already using Arena PLM today.

•  Visibility to thousands of prospects that visit Arena's website on a daily basis.

•  The opportunity to participate in ongoing PLM marketing and visibility initiatives.

Arena PLM enables manufacturing companies to share - in real time - a single version of the product record, facilitating design and engineering collaboration in diverse industries such as high-tech electronics, medical devices, and consumer products. With an easy to use application that can be accessed on-demand, everyone in the global outsourced supply chain - from OEMs to their contract manufacturers, outsourced designers, and suppliers - is allowed to work more efficiently, speed time to market, and more capably address market pressures.

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