Arena Datasheet: Arena Request Management

Manufacturers today are constantly faced with the challenge of getting products to market faster, better, cheaper. The ability to consistently manage and act on input from customers, suppliers, contract manufacturing partners, as well as marketing, service, and operations groups is critical to improving product features and quality. Unfortunately, feedback provided by these different groups is often stored in disconnected information silos and is inaccessible to those responsible for change implementation. Add to that the inability to trace back the issues that led to the creation of an engineering change order (ECO), either for regulatory audits or for future analysis, and one can clearly understand why a formal change request system is a business imperative for manufacturers.

Arena Request Management allows a company to collect, prioritize, evaluate, and track product change requests. It provides a centralized location within the Arena environment for the management of typically large volumes of suggestions, problems, and requested actions that are generated by the entire organization and manufacturing partners.

Request Management Supports

Arena Request Management supports a wide variety of applications, including:

• Engineering Change Request (ECR)
• Corrective Action Request (CAR)
• Closed-Loop Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA)
• Part Number Request (PNR), and Part Number Change request (PNC)

Because of its web-based nature, with Request Management any stakeholder — customer, supplier, contract manufacturer, marketing group, customer support center (in house or outsourced) — can be seamlessly involved in critical product quality improvement processes.

Improved Product Quality

With a better way for engineering to file, track and follow up on product related problems, product quality issues are resolved faster.

Request Management enables us to qualify and quantify the R*, before we make it an O*. This saves us time and money, as we are able to implement O’s faster.

Sherry Evens
Product Development Support Manager,
Radio Systems
(*R=ECR, *O=ECO)

Regulatory and Quality Standards Compliance

The RM functionality provides the necessary system infrastructure to implement CAR and/or CAPA processes in order to comply with regulations and quality standards.

Configurable Workflow

Requests can be submitted to any one of a pre-configured list of evaluator groups. In every case, input on a requested action is collected from the selected group, after which the request can be promoted, deferred, or closed by the request administrator for that group.

Change Order Integration

Key Capabilities

• Central location for all product change requests
• Integrated with Arena Change Management (ECOs)
• Item and files/markups associations
• Configurable supplier access & submission with auto-routing
• Recommendations and/or comments by and approved users
• Support for any number of issues raised within each request
• Authentication via electronic signatures for recommendation/response and administrative actions
• Automatic notifications based on per- user participation level
• Support for customizable request, deferral, and resolution codes
• Support for custom attributes
• Automatic re-submission of deferred requests based on deferral deadline
• Powerful search across all request attributes (including affected item)
• Automated logging of all activity

The Request Management functionality is a core component of Arena, guaranteeing availability and consistency of associated item and file data. From submission through evaluation, to resolution and implementation in a change order, the entire history of a request is maintained. Powerful search capabilities help the user to find and retrieve the requests addressed by any change order. For each item, the item header shows how many unresolved requests include that item.

Configurable Supplier access and Submission With auto-Routing

Selected suppliers can be given access to the RM functions, with the ability to see and search within their own requests. Supplier-generated requests are auto-routed to a pre-configured evaluator group to ensure proper handling. This capability is used in the same manner to provide customer access.

How It Works

Any user with appropriate privileges can initiate a request. The request is assigned a customizable type prefix, and receives a unique auto-generated number upon submission. Both the problem and the requested action can be described, and a request code can be selected. Employees and partner users may select an evaluator group from a pick list; evaluator groups for supplier users are pre-defined administratively.

The evaluator group is automatically notified when a new request is submitted. The request originator can add additional evaluators, or request additional evaluations with one click. Each evaluator group has its own administrator who is responsible for moderating evaluation discussions and making changes to request status. Each participant’s level of participation may be edited individually for particular requests.

Each participant may make and/or edit their own recommendations for the request, including:

• No Recommendation
• Defer: no immediate action, but keep for future reconsideration
• Promote: implement requested action via a Change Order. A Change Order built from a request is automatically associated with the request
• Close: no further action required to implement the request

Participants may raise any number of issues with each request, and may respond to issues raised by other participants. The administrator for the evaluator group oversees the collection of recommendations, issues, and responses, and then defers, closes, or promotes the request based on input from the group. Promoted requests may be associated with one or more change orders that address the request. Additionally, a pre-configured deferral or resolution code can be assigned.