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Narragansett Imaging Gets High-Resolution Visibility into Its Product Record with Arena
Each time you see specialized imaging equipment in use, perhaps a digital camera at a traffic light, a portable X-ray machine in a medical office, or a thumb print or retina reader in a high security situation, you’ll have experienced a sample of Narragansett Imaging’s work.
To get something as powerful as Arena and start controlling our documents without trouble is a huge benefit for a company our size with limited resources.
Doug Sherman
Vice President, Engineering
Narragansett Imaging
Narragansett Imaging is the leading independent manufacturer of OEM imaging subsystems for use in traffic control, medical imaging, biometrics, machine vision, defense, and more. The company serves a niche in the market, designing highly customized products for its customers. Started in 2004, Narragansett is a relatively new face in the industry, but has had the advantage of being spun out of the Phillips Corporation and given the ability to draw on 40 years of imaging experience.
Narragansett’s key assets are its people and its technology. The company’s team of engineers boasts a tremendous amount of experience in imaging systems and creates products that enable customers (who then label, market and sell their imaging products) to be leaders in their respective markets.
The connection between Narragansett’s engineering team and its outsourcing partners is critically important because it ensures the company’s products meet rigorous customer requirements. Narragansett Imaging thrives in an entrepreneurial atmosphere promoting teamwork, continual improvement, and open lines of communication.
Narragansett’s engineering team is evaluated and measured on its ability to reuse key design information in all new product designs.
“Storing our information on our engineering server wasn’t bad until we wanted to reuse a particular part, say a circuit from one camera in another. We created duplicates and it became a nightmare when we made a change to it and couldn’t ensure that the change got rippled through to all of the other products that incorporated it. It was nearly impossible to make sure the change was made in every related project folder. It set us up for potential errors,” said Gary Conforti, document control manager at Narragansett Imaging.
The company needed to assert greater control over its product development process and maintain one complete product record, where all product development data would be contained. In addition, to meet increased demand from the medical industry and comply with its strict standards, Narragansett needed to be able to track, document and report on information, collaborate and enforce design and operational controls.
Narragansett selected Arena after a comprehensive evaluation of other major software providers. The cost and on-demand advantage of Arena played a positive role in its selection.
“Arena offers a big cost benefit. With Arena, we didn’t need to increase our IT spend to implement and maintain the software. We didn’t have to buy a dedicated server, and we never need to worry about programming or updates. That kind of heavy administration is what other systems require,” said Doug Sherman, vice president of engineering at Narragansett Imaging.
With only one week of formal training and help from an Arena-based project manager, a single, focused Narragansett employee implemented Arena and helped the team become productive with the software. The organization was able to master engineering change orders (ECOs) and compliance functionality in less than 10 weeks.
By adopting Arena, Narragansett can now better control its product development process and maintain one complete product record. The company has significantly increased its engineering productivity and reduced product errors. It also enjoys improved collaboration and better handling of the engineering change process.
“The collaboration we can do with Arena is one of the most useful elements of the product for us,” said Sherman. “We’ve already connected several cross-functional teams. We have started to implement an ECO process and plan on that process being used by the entire company. It will be far more controlled and streamlined with Arena than it ever was in the past.”
“The collaboration we can do with Arena is one of the most useful elements of the product for us,” said Sherman. “We’ve already connected several cross-functional teams. We have started to implement an ECO process and plan on that process being used by the entire company. It will be far more controlled and streamlined with Arena than it ever was in the past.”
Improved product cost structure. With better visibility into BOM and part information, Narragansett can reuse more parts and designs. As a result, the company can be more competitive and expects to cut product costs 8% by using Arena.
Total cost of ownership (TCO) vs. traditional client/server software. Because Arena is delivered on-demand, Narragansett did not need to add any additional IT infrastructure to support its initiative. Over a five year period the TCO of Arena is 30% that of traditional client/server software.
Reduced cost of compliance. Compliance management in Arena allows Narragansett to pull together a compliance report with one click, reducing compliance reporting time by 92%.
Reduction in ECO cycle times. With automated routings and status notifications, and the ability to have one change affect all relevant parts, Narragansett expects to reduce ECO implementation cycles by 70%.
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This datasheet explains how high-tech manufacturing companies can specifically benefit from Arena.
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