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Arena Furthers Commitment to Offering Robust Single Product Development Solution

A Robust Single Product Development Solution A PLM solution with embedded ALM and QMS streamlines processes, reduces the need to toggle between clumsily bandaged together siloed systems and mitigates errors. As an extension of our continued goal to offer a complete single solution, Arena just integrated with 1factory to provide a comprehensive quality assurance solution for OEMs and their supply chain partners from initial design through the quality control processes on their factory floors and across their supply chain.

Words can’t describe what a difference having a single product development solution has meant to our customers. With our 1factory integration, the OEM and the supplier can identify quality issues, collaborate on resolutions and document the action plan from within a single quality process in a proactive manner. Now, when a part fails inspection, a quality inspector can create an Arena quality object—a non-conformance material report (NCMR), supplier corrective action request (SCAR), or a corrective action preventive action (CAPA)—directly from within 1factory.

Engineering teams have complete visibility with links between components and suppliers for all quality issues as they assess the part for future product inclusion. Impacted teams will be able to proactively analyze products returned from the field against the component’s design specifications and factory inspection data, driving a closed-loop quality process from manufacturing, to field repair, to the engineering team, in order to optimize product manufacturing quality and reduce field repair costs.

Subliminal message: Arena provides the market’s only all-in-one product development solution.

This is part III of our interview with 1factory’s super smart President Nipun Girotra. And I’m not just saying he’s smart because I owe him money. In Part I and Part II of our conversation he outlined challenges—in painful detail—impacting today’s modern manufacturers. He knows these pain points because he’s been there, done that. In this installment, he outlines the solution.

Arena: How does our partnership help resolve the challenge manufacturers face?

Girotra: As designs change, manufacturing processes and inspection plans must change in sync. Unfortunately, with paper and spreadsheet-based processes, manufacturers struggle to keep inspection plans in sync with engineering changes. Managing these changes becomes significantly harder when these documents must be kept in sync across the extended supply chain.

On the production floor, every time a new batch is produced, technicians must locate the correct inspection plan and revision, print inspection sheets and collect measurement data. Measurement data, often collected on paper, must then be transcribed into Excel, summarized and formatted for reporting. This process repeats thousands of times each year generating large volumes of paper and spreadsheet data, and resulting in wasted productivity. Problems such as data transcription errors, incorrect or lost files, and incomplete inspection records are commonplace.

Arena: An integrated change control business process ensures that inspection plans move in lock step with engineering specifications, within the factory and across the supply chain. The production floor is always working with the correct inspection plan revision. Data is collected digitally, eliminating transcription errors, and automating the reporting process. That’s big, isn’t it?

Girotra: Yes. Manufacturing and design engineers benefit from real-time access to inspection plans, inspection data, and analysis from within the factory and across the supply chain. Design and manufacturing problems can be quickly identified and resolved with access to parameter-level data, and automated analysis that highlights high-risk parameters before they turn into defects.

The integrated solution enables data traceability, making it easy to retrieve data by Part Number, Batch, Serial Number, Gage ID, Purchase Order Number etc. A supplier dashboard provides batch-level and parameter-level risk assessment for all incoming material, along with a DPPM score for each supplier. Similarly, a factory dashboard provides batch-level and parameter-level defect risk assessment for all outbound shipments.

Arena: Are there measurable ROIs that you expect this partnership could deliver for customers? 

Girotra: As a stand-alone system, we deliver productivity and quality improvements in terms of dramatically reduced inspection cycle times and reduced defects. A large precision optics manufacturer has reported a 50% reduction in inspection cycle-time and an 81% reduction in incoming defects. Similarly, a medical device parts manufacturer has seen inspection, data-collection, and reporting cycle-times drop from 14 minutes per part to 6 minutes per part. Repeat that process a few thousand times a year, and the savings are huge.

As an integrated solution, we can deliver even greater value. An integrated change control business process ensures that inspection plans move in lock step with engineering specifications, within the factory and across the supply chain. The production floor is always working with the correct inspection plan revision. Data is collected digitally, eliminating transcription errors, and automating the reporting process.

Arena: What is the value of a cloud-based solution to the Arena and 1factory partnership? 

Girotra: Quality control solutions have previously been unaffordable for small and mid-sized manufacturers. With a multi-tenant cloud system, we reduce the total cost of ownership (by eliminating costs of servers, operating systems, databases, backups etc), and manufacturers can finally afford to empower their line employees with the tools to ensure quality at the source.

I’d like to thank Girotra for taking the time to speak with me. I learned even more valuable information on how our partnership with 1factory helps our customers. If you’re already an Arena customer and are interested in learning more, reach out to your Account Executive. If you’re not an Arena customer and interested in learning more, contact us.

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