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About Arena PLM

Arena PLM brings product information and processes together in a single cloud-native platform to speed product design and development.

Learn more about Arena PLM

Pros:

Arena is the central hub of document control within our company. It is easy to search for documents and changes.

Cons:

The UI has lots of small text and empty space.

Arena PLM ratings

Average score

Ease of Use
4.1
Customer Service
4.5
Features
4.2
Value for Money
4.2

Likelihood to recommend

7.8/ 10

Arena PLM has an overall rating of 4.4 out 5 stars based on 98 user reviews on Capterra.

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Filter reviews (98)

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

User friendly

5.0 last year

Pros:

Very easy to use and implement in the manufacturing environment.

Cons:

The interface could have been more intelligent.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

last year

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review! We appreciate your feedback and are glad overall you've found Arena PLM easy to use.

Calvin
Change Management Analyst in US
Semiconductors, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Arena PLM Review

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Using Arena PLM has been straightforward and easy to teach to other cross-sector teams.

Pros:

- User friendly interface - Clear routing and approvals - Easy administrative backend controls

Cons:

Arena had no notable cons or points of concern.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

5 months ago

Hi Calvin, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review! We're glad you've found it easy to use across your teams and hope you continue to see the benefits of Arena PLM.

Cong
Sr. RnD Engineer in US
Medical Devices, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Functional but could have better usability

3.0 5 months ago

Pros:

The search menu is intuitive and easy to use

Cons:

Creating new entries and searching doesn't have any smart features like auto complete.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review, Cong. We appreciate your feedback about smart features for search but are happy to hear you've found it easy to use.

Jonathan
Director Of Manufacturing in Canada
Medical Devices, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Arena in Manufacturing

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Good, we use for BOM, Chane Management and document archives. Researching Quality World for expansion

Pros:

Revision history and search capabilities. Available reporting works well for data extraction and offline analysis (Power BI).

Cons:

Reporting does not have some key fields available to users.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to review Arena PLM, Jonathan! We're happy to hear you are taking advantage of Arena's BI tools and find Arena useful for BOM, change, and document management.

Beth
Mechanical Engineering Manager in US
Defense & Space, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Preferred over Windchill, but still leaves a bit to be desired

4.0 4 months ago

Comments: Overall, I'm happy with my interaction with Arena.

Pros:

I love the simplicity of some functions that other PTC products, like Windchill, overly complicate.

Cons:

There's no way to truly customize the dashboard to show ALL items where you are involved - instead of creating a quick link to a search which opens a separate window view of Changes I have open, I want to see a direct list of items I have open. It would also be nice if it could develop an interface to SolidWorks so we wouldn't have to use a convoluted process of getting our information between both programs.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 weeks ago

Thank you so much for leaving us a review, Beth. We're happy to hear you've found Arena PLM simple to use and appreciate your input on our dashboards. We will share your feedback with the team.

Sidney
Senior Manufacturing Engineer in US
Defense & Space, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Arena is a good system

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Easy to use. This is one of the better PLM systems I've used.

Pros:

Easy to use. The Change Order system works well. Tracking history of Items created is good. Creating BOMs is easy. Approval system flow is basic and works.

Cons:

More difficult if administrator doesn't configure it correctly. Some sections are little vague on how to use properly like the Sourcing section. Everyone enters the information differently due to it's flexibility to use it. Redlines section is confusing how to use (I still don't know how to use it!) so I end up just attaching a document for redlines.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

5 months ago

We appreciate you taking the time to leave us your feedback, Sidney. Thank you for sharing your experience with using the tool. We're glad that you find Arena PLM overall easy to use. Please do not hesitate to contact the Arena success team for best practice son how to use redlines or if you need any other guidance.

Greg
Senior System Integration Engineer in US
Biotechnology, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Solid Quality Product

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: It works well for our companies needs for our quality system! We can control the process of uploading and revving documentation for our product with relative ease!

Pros:

Allows our company to collaborate on releasing and control documents and trainings

Cons:

The UI is semi clunky and takes time to learn and parse

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Hi Greg, thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We're happy to hear Arena PLM has enabled collaboration for your organization.

Audrey
CX Specialist in US
Logistics & Supply Chain, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

User Friendly Platform

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Simple to use, easy access to multiple file types and BOM locations. Even as a beginner the platform was very intuitive.

Pros:

Arena PLM is extremely user friendly. The ability to link products together combined with the BOM capability is top notch.

Cons:

We have experienced issues with integration between platforms, although these issues are usually simply fixed.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review, Audrey! We're happy to hear that you've found it easy to use and despite some challenges with integrations, you were able to resolve these issues quickly.

Vonnie
Senior Technical Writer in US
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Love the Organizational Aspect of Arena PLM

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: I work with Arena PLM in a "user" capacity versus an "administrative" capacity. It's quick and easy to input the information needed to process DCOs.

Pros:

The best part of Arena PLM for me is the organizational aspect of the platform that allows me to stay on task. It's a fantastic time saver.

Cons:

Nothing, everything is good about Arena PLM; especially the fact that new enhancements are added often.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to leave Arena PLM a review, Vonnie! We hope you continue to realize time savings and other benefits with our platform.

Leo
Chief Compliance Officer in Netherlands
Verified LinkedIn User
Medical Devices, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Document Management

2.0 6 years ago

Comments: very bad

Pros:

It's bad that I didn't like it very well, It could be more intuitive. Pros are overshadowed by Cons

Cons:

No technical supports Documentation Management and Quality Management not relevant to medical device applicatons/

Isaac
Research Associate II in US
Biotechnology, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Arena Review

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Tough to learn, but overall pretty good

Pros:

Very customizable

Cons:

Steep learning curve

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for your review of Arena PLM, Isaac. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the Arena team if you ever need more assistance or training on the platform – we would be more than happy to help!

Kevin
Document Control Specialist in US
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Document Control Specialist

5.0 5 months ago

Comments: Overall very positive. There isn't anything negative that would persuade me to not use it.

Pros:

Easy to look up and retrieve information.

Cons:

If only the redline can be display and be shown by itself.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Thank you for taking the time to review Arena PLM, Kevin. We appreciate hearing about your experience with our platform and hope you continue to realize the benefits from using Arena.

Nitin
DQA in US
Medical Devices, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Arena Impression

4.0 5 months ago

Comments: I have had great experiences with Arena, I have been able to access everything I needed pretty quickly.

Pros:

Since I started using Arena, it has been reliable.

Cons:

Some days the server can be a bit slow but not for too long

Arena, a PTC Business Response

4 months ago

Hi Nitin, thank you for your review of Arena PLM. We're glad you've found our platform reliable and have had great experiences using it!

Joe
Electrical Engineer in US
Medical Devices, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Arena review

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Arena is a straightforward tool to learn and use.

Cons:

The search feature within Arena is terrible and it seems to get stuck with Chrome and firefox unless cookies are deleted weekly. The search feature is limited to a limited "world", and gets stuck with limiters (e.g. search only within completed changes) that aren't apparent when starting a search. If you don't know the naming conventions used prior, Arena makes finding information time-consuming.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hi Joe, Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review! We appreciate your feedback regarding the search function and will share this with our internal team so it can be included in future product enhancements.

Michelle
Document Control in US
Pharmaceuticals, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Daily User

4.0 last year

Comments: Overall experience has been great. Arena support, Arena Help, and pagetips is are very helpful

Pros:

Ease of use! Able to train users very easily

Cons:

Searchability is a bit wonky and it causes users to be confused

Arena, a PTC Business Response

last year

Hi Michelle, Thank you for leaving us a review! We're glad Arena PLM has been easy to use and that you've overall had a positive experience with the tool.

Nancy
Component Engineer in US
Semiconductors, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

I recommend Arena PLM since it is friendly user

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Arena PLM is a friendly user tool.

Pros:

The features I like most about Arena PLM is the software memorirzed what I searched so I do not need to re-enter the part number again. It is an excellent feature.

Cons:

I need to set up correctly to get the correct export file in Excell format

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hi Nancy, Thank you for taking the time to review Arena PLM. We're happy to hear you've found it to be user-friendly. We hope you continue to enjoy and find efficiencies using our solution.

Georgios
Quality Engineer in UK
Renewables & Environment, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Great PLM tool

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Ease of use, very intuitive frontend. Customisable in many ways, can be adapted to the business

Cons:

Expensive for the features it has and new features are also add-ons which need to be bought with upgraded licenses.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hi Georgios, Thanks for leaving us a review! We're glad to hear Arena has been intuitive to use. We appreciate your feedback regarding the add ons and pricing and will pass to our internal team for consideration.

Eli
Sr. Electronic Engineer in Israel
Mechanical or Industrial Engineering, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Arena PLM - How can it be improved?

3.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Nevertheless, the system maintains the principles of basic PLM system.

Cons:

It is very difficult to search for items in the arena. In any case, if you find it, you can't see the whole picture.Lack of connectivity and work order.When a BOM is requested in Excel, the file is opened in the old Microsoft Excel version. Is it possible to update?SAP is not synchronize to Arena.OrCAD CIS database is not synchronize to Arena.

Zachary
Production Support Engineer I in US
Research, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

A Base User's Look at Arena PLM

4.0 2 years ago

Pros:

Relatively easy to take care of trainings required and review current and prior versions of documents.

Cons:

The dashboard feels unintuitive and sometimes seems like activities are left longer than expected, leading to times I second-guess if I've completed a training.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hi Zachary, Thank you for leaving us a review! We appreciate your feedback regarding the dashboard and will be sharing it with our team to account for in future enhancements of our product.

Moises
SMT Manager in Mexico
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Great Product

5.0 2 years ago

Pros:

I love how easy it is to use, very user friendly, can do all kinds of changes, document all of it,

Cons:

there's nothing I haven't really liked on this software, so far so good.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hello Moises, Thank you for a 5-star review of Arena PLM! We appreciate your feedback and are very pleased that you've had such a positive experience across the board. Regards, Alaine

Claus
Product Mananager in US
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Arena PLM insights

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Overall the experience is good compared to other PLM software I used in the past.

Pros:

Streamlined workflows. Being on the cloud not worry about updates.

Cons:

Some features are hard to use, in particular when it comes to creating ECOs. We have a dedicated product documentation team to help with that.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hello Claus, Thank you for your review of Arena PLM. We're glad your experience has been good, especially compared to your past use of other PLM systems. Please reach out to support or consider online training classes to help with the ECO creation process. https://www.arenasolutions.com/customers/education/

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Biotechnology, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Seems to get the job done

4.0 2 years ago

Pros:

It's fairly intuitive to use and is packed with all the different "worlds that you can need" - Training, NCRs, Documents, etc.

Cons:

The NCR world seems to need the most improvement - it's not very intuitive to navigate and seems to be missing a lot of the key steps/info required to complete a thorough investigation.

Brandon
Product Manager in US
Automotive, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

VERY FLEXIBLE AND POWERFUL, BUT ALSO CUMBERSOME

4.0 4 years ago

Comments: Arena has served us well as our PLM. It does what we need it to do!

Pros:

The thing I liked most about the product was the ability to customize it to fit our needs. Once you understand how to use it the software can keep an excellent record of your product, parts, documents etc. that is easy to navigate.

Cons:

The thing I like least about this product is the number of steps required to complete a task. Updating information for lots of items is cumbersome and the import tool that is meant to speed this up lacks documentation making it frustrating to learn. While I understand that some of this might be related to the flexibility that it offers there are a few features that could greatly improve efficiency, specifically related to making the same change to a large batch of items.

steven
Senior Engineer in US
Oil & Energy, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Arena Review

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: Excellent

Pros:

Searching for parts and pulling up the drawings to compare them to like parts. Also to look up BOMs to see what we need for certain assemblies.

Cons:

Adding parts to an assembly is one by one. Would be nice to be able to add multiple parts in one go.

Arena, a PTC Business Response

2 years ago

Hi Steven, Thank you for sharing your positive experience using Arena PLM. We appreciate your feedback.

Bradley
Professor
Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Great for planning an expansion without risking huge CapEx.

4.0 7 years ago

Comments: Overall this is a really great product. The high level actions are easy to understand, and there are even graphics that can be used as specific inputs and outputs so that a presentation can have products rather than widgets. Also, the negatives of the strange statistical anomalies really are not a big deal. An experienced operations manager or engineer will know what to pay attention to and what is noise.

Pros:

This program's biggest upside is its ability to provide a testing ground for potential upgrades, expansions, or new factories, facilities, etc. without needing to spend huge dollars on a physical pilot or building or the labor cost of a time study or statistical analysis from a Black Belt or other highly paid employee

Cons:

Some of the random variables do not take into account reality well enough. I understand that true AI is not possible right now, but the fact is that purely statistics based tools can produce results that would never occur in the real world (i.e. A factory only attempts to build 3 units in an entire day and 3,000 the next day because it is possible in a Poisson Process).