RAVE Aerospace Achieves AI-Powered Product Execution and Audit Readiness With Arena PLM for Government

Business Challenges

RAVE Aerospace must manage detailed product configurations for in-flight entertainment and connectivity systems while maintaining accurate and readily accessible records.

Early on, engineering changes moved through the organization in manila folders containing printed change orders and markups. Employees physically routed each package from desk to desk to collect signatures, sometimes across multiple buildings. Because approvals occurred sequentially, an unavailable executive or department owner could hold up the entire process, and completing a single change could take up to a week.

The same dependence on paper created challenges during regulatory audits. Teams searched through piles of physical documents and photocopies to locate supporting evidence, limiting their ability to respond quickly and confidently to auditors’ requests.

Over time, different departments relied on different data sources, creating uncertainty around which revision, record, or product definition was correct. “You can’t have 50 sources of your data that everybody relies on. As we rapidly grew, we ended up with isolated islands of information,” stated Phil Seymour, Director of Configuration Management at RAVE Aerospace.

Supplier collaboration introduced another layer of risk. External partners require up-to-date CAD files, pick-and-place files, bill of materials (BOM) information, and change details to complete their work. RAVE Aerospace needed an efficient way to deliver complete technical packages while carefully controlling each supplier’s access to sensitive product information.

Increasing product complexity, regulatory requirements, and supply chain dependencies reinforced the need for a secure, scalable solution to control product information, accelerate approvals, streamline audits, and provide trusted data to employees and partners.

The Solution

A Secure, Cloud-Native Platform for Aerospace-Grade Configuration Management and Compliance

RAVE Aerospace implemented Arena PLM for Government, hosted on the AWS GovCloud platform, in late 2010 to establish a centralized product record and strengthen configuration management across the organization.

Arena provides the company with a single source of product truth for controlling item information, lifecycle states, engineering changes, approvals, and related documentation. Clear distinctions between released, effective, and working revisions help users retrieve the right information for each task.

Arena’s configurable attributes enable RAVE Aerospace to classify information according to its unique business requirements. This helps teams quickly search, filter, and sort records to find relevant information. As Seymour emphasized, they need to ensure that product information is scalable and properly categorized to keep up with ever-expanding regulations.

Item-to-item associations allow teams to link formal process documents and other supporting records to the product BOM. In turn, they can quickly retrieve compliance evidence during regulatory audits.

Arena’s automated engineering change order (ECO) routings help expedite the review and approval process. Using AI-powered file summaries and redlines, reviewers can easily compare revisions, identify differences, and understand exactly what changed.

The system’s role-based access policies control information visibility by user function and scope, allowing the company to securely collaborate with external partners and share pertinent product records while protecting IP.

Arena keeps everything connected in a single source of truth, helping us get through our audits with greater speed and confidence.”

—Phil Seymour, Director of Configuration Management, RAVE Aerospace

Results

Since implementing Arena, RAVE Aerospace has experienced efficiency gains and improvements across engineering change reviews, audits, and supply chain operations.

Reduced ECO Cycle Times

RAVE Aerospace replaced paper-based ECO approvals, which could take up to a week, with Arena’s automated digital approval process. While processing hundreds of different types of changes each month, the company maintains an average 5-day cycle time for 80% of ECOs, including production change orders requiring third-party approvals.

Dashboards, email notifications, automated reminders, and mandatory due dates help keep reviews moving and ensure stakeholders remain informed throughout the process.

To avoid delays, the company configures approval routes with multiple authorized signers across geographic regions, providing coverage when a primary approver is unavailable.

Reviewers can evaluate changes at the level of detail appropriate to their role. Some users confirm a concise AI-generated change summary, while others examine item details and supporting documentation. “This layered approach supports informed reviews without requiring every participant to spend an hour examining the entire change package,” explains Seymour.

Greater Audit Readiness and Confidence

The organization successfully completed a European regulatory audit, an OEM audit, and a third-party aerospace industry audit within a two-month period. During the OEM audit, the company’s centralized and focused approach to information management was recognized as a notable strength. “Having everything centralized in one place and connected was a plus. We were able to retrieve documents quickly and respond to auditors with greater confidence,” added Seymour.

Secure Collaboration Across the Supply Chain

The company aligns Arena user access roles with functional and departmental groups. Employees, contractors, basic suppliers, and advanced suppliers receive different levels of access. Trusted subcontractors are granted access to specific product information beginning with an approved revision, while contractors are limited to the records required for their scope of work.

Improved Visibility Into Component Risk and Approved Sources

Using Arena Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI), RAVE Aerospace can easily identify risky electromechanical components and find viable replacements. Design engineers gain faster access to the component information they need, while the configuration team retains control over creating and managing supplier items and approved sources.

“The ability to quickly find crosses for various electromechanical components and add them with a simple click is very useful,” says Seymour.

Faster Access to Actionable Information

RAVE Aerospace uses Arena’s AI File Summary and File Insights to quickly extract and analyze valuable product information. Data compilation and analysis, which would normally take several days and be error-prone, now take only a couple of minutes thanks to Arena’s centralized platform and embedded AI capabilities. “We want to spend less time converting data into information and more time making decisions that lead to action,” stated Seymour.

A Trusted Foundation That Keeps Teams Moving

Today, Arena serves as RAVE Aerospace’s trusted system of record, providing product teams and supply chain partners with 24/7 secure access to accurate, up-to-date information. With a centralized source of product truth, teams can move beyond fact-finding to focus on execution, innovation, and continued growth.

Arena gives us 24/7 access to the trusted product information we need to drive decisions and move forward.”

—Phil Seymour, Director of Configuration Management, RAVE Aerospace