Arena Advanced File Management (AFM) provides sophisticated file management capabilities to the Arena system. AFM is ideal for companies that require enhanced control over individual files. OEMs in regulated industries, such as medical devices, automotive, aerospace, and industrial equipment, will especially benefit from the capabilities AFM offers. Aside from obvious benefits in engineering and manufacturing departments, AFM is also useful for departments that need a cost effective document management solution.
In AFM, a single file can be associated with any number of objects in the Arena system, including parts, assemblies, BOMs, changes, requests, suppliers, supplier items, and projects. AFM also maintains association integrity, so when a file that is associated with an item is updated and uploaded as a new edition, the solution automatically associates the latest edition with the working revision of the item. Through the change management process, that new edition can then be released to the effective revision of the item, keeping changes under tight control. AFM tracks all editions and associations, so users can immediately identify what will be affected by a change.
This one-to-many association with product items is critical for files in complex manufacturing environments, for example:
AFM serves as a work-in-progress repository for markup and distribution files used for engineering change requests, tracking, and other early stage change processes. Clear version control, having multiple users make and view markups, and the ability to have the extended product team efficiently participate in product change decisions leads to reduction of rework and faster time to market. Post-release corrections to supporting documents can be made quickly and efficiently, as the association between item and document, its author, edition, and even collaborators can be displayed with a single click. Overall, this contributes to a higher quality new product introduction process.
Files can be shared with the supplier users who have access to the items, changes, or requests with which the files are associated. Confidential files can be marked as private, preventing all supplier users from seeing or accessing them, even if they have access to the object with which a private file is associated. By marking files as private, companies can keep their product records complete in one easily accessible location while limiting access to specific files to employees and trusted partners. Default supplier visibility can be set for each file category, so all new files assigned to a category are private or public by default.
Extensive logging of all file related activities, including all file associations with an item, provides a powerful audit capability that supports the process of achieving ISO or FDA compliance. Arena also supports post-release file corrections, enabling updates to be made to a file (for example adding an “obsolete” watermark) once an item or assembly has been locked down. This is important for meeting quality or regulatory requirements, and contributes to a more complete product record. File categories can be designated as File Evidence locations for individual compliance requirements, so all compliance views and output files such as compliance reports only include files assigned to specified categories.
With AFM, users can check out a file, make modifications and check the file back in. When a file is checked out, no other user can modify it, which ensures that changes are strictly controlled. File versions can be managed independently as “editions” and AFM allows for custom edition naming. Files can be viewed online, as well as marked up. Markup files can even be managed separately from their originals, and can be reserved to avoid other users marking up the same file. They can also be routed under ECO control. When the markups are accepted, the file can be checked in again as the next edition of the original file. A powerful indexing and search capability allows the user to quickly find and retrieve any file from the system. Users benefit from its sophisticated document control, versioning and one-to-many file association capabilities.
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This datasheet explains how high-tech manufacturing companies can specifically benefit from Arena.
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