CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 December 2005
Product News
Arena Solutions Ushers in New Era of Product Lifecycle Management
Arena Solutions announced the availability of its Arena PLM Fall '05 release to all users, both new customers and Arena's existing 15,000 subscribers worldwide. The latest release of Arena's PLM service provides manufacturers of all sizes with an on-demand solution for even simpler collaboration with their community of suppliers; a comprehensive management solution to meet regulatory standards such as RoHS, WEEE, FDA, UL and FCC; and the flexibility to customize their PLM solution based on their unique business needs through a simple-to-use, point and click, web-based interface. Now, manufacturers can have a custom PLM solution that is cost-effective, easy to implement, and tailored to their business-all without having to write a single line of code.
The Fall '05 release also introduces Arena PLM Enterprise Edition for enterprises that require a rich, flexible PLM solution combined with the value of an on-demand service. Arena PLM Enterprise Edition joins Arena PLM Workgroup Edition and Arena PLM Professional Edition to complete the broadest suite of on-demand PLM products available today, allowing manufacturers to choose the edition that best meets their unique needs.
Because Arena PLM is delivered on demand, these feature and interface improvements are instantly available to all users. Manufacturers can focus 100% of their efforts on product innovation, not on installing upgrades or maintaining IT infrastructure.
"Manufacturers are under increasing pressure to deliver products to market faster, manage and maintain regulatory compliance, and collaborate effectively with an ever-expanding global supply chain," said Michael Topolovac, chief executive officer of Arena Solutions. "With our latest release, Arena Solutions raises the bar for on-demand PLM solutions, delivering manufacturers unprecedented value. The enhanced functionality that our family of PLM solutions provides enables manufacturers of all sizes to meet the increasing demands of regulatory compliance, such as RoHS, head-on, while providing them the flexibility to customize their solution based on their unique business requirements."
Arena PLM Fall '05 enhancements include:
Powerful Advanced Tools for Compliance Management
Arena Solutions provides the first on-demand, scalable and easy to implement compliance management solution for complying not only with current regulations like RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) but also pending and future regulations. With Arena On-Demand PLM, users can now quickly, easily, and confidently meet the July 1, 2006 RoHS deadline, as well as manage other regulatory, industry, and safety standards such as WEEE, FDA, UL and FCC. Design for Compliance (DFC) has become as important to manufacturers as Design for Manufacturability (DFM), and Arena On-Demand PLM makes these compliance tools instantly available to its users.
Arena PLM's compliance management framework provides an end-to-end solution for the entire compliance process. Manufacturers can now:
• define, apply, track and report on any regulatory, safety or compliance initiative
• flexibly and pro-actively address pending and future compliance initiatives to ensure responsible manufacturing
• gain early visibility into non-compliant products and make better business decisions regarding product inventory and supplier relationships
• leverage an on-demand service to simplify collaboration with their extended supply chain, and achieve compliance more quickly and cost effectively
"Arena understands that in today's global economy compliance is not achieved in isolation, but through a collaborative effort between a manufacturer and their supply chain," said Topolovac. "By enabling simplified collaboration and shared responsibility for product manufacturing across the entire value chain, Arena On-Demand PLM enables companies to deliver products more cost effectively, more responsibly and in a more timely fashion without sacrificing innovation."
Web 2.0-based Collaboration
With its Fall '05 release, Arena PLM extends its collaboration capabilities, already utilized by hundreds of OEMs to interact with their global supply chain, to address the earlier research and discovery phase of supplier engagement. Arena subscribers can now find, connect and engage in new supplier relationships via the Arena Supplier Marketplace, an online directory of product design firms, contract manufacturers, component suppliers, and fabricators trained on Arena PLM.
Building upon its mission of being the fastest and easiest PLM solution to deploy and manage, Fall '05 also incorporates user interface improvements based on the latest web standards including AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). The new AJAX-based UI provides users with a richer, and easier to use experience-similar to what they are accustomed to with common desktop applications significantly increasing productivity and customer satisfaction.
Point and Click Customization
Fall '05 introduces the capability of customized PLM to deliver the most flexible PLM solution at an affordable cost. Through a simple, point and click interface companies can now tailor their PLM solution to best match their unique product data and business processes-without having to pay high-customization costs or write a single line of code. Now companies can
• customize their data model within Arena PLM to define and classify the unique nature of their products, down to the component level. Using a simple point and click interface users can tailor the unique attributes of their product and its components-whether it's a network router or a cardiac monitoring device.
• model unique business processes tailored to their best practices, such as product enhancement requests, new part number creation, or even cost reduction improvements
• dynamically organize and present information, such as Bill of Materials (BOM) and item specifications, in customized, intuitive views and forms
"Arena has always provided the flexibility and simplicity we demanded in a PLM solution without the high cost and complexity," said Michael Foreshew, general manager information technology services for Air International Thermal Systems. "Now with their latest release and the introduction of their enterprise edition, Arena PLM can meet the complex needs of our global operations, providing us with a single product record across 4 geographies and delivering even greater value."
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