If you’ve ever managed an interdisciplinary manufacturing project (one that involves engineers, purchasing, production and contract manufacturing groups) you’ll know what I mean when I say each discipline speaks its own language. When you’re dealing with engineers…

We’re offering something new at Arena—single-user, lightweight BOM management. Let me explain. We’ve come a long way since our early days as BOM.com, and today Arena BOMControl is used by thousands of manufacturers around the world. And while we’ve solved…

What if you could download and print a physical component directly to your printer? The Pirate Bay (TPB) is confident that this will soon be a reality. The website just announced it is supporting a new type of file…

When IndustryWeek released its annual ranking of revenue growth for the 500 largest publicly held U.S. manufacturing companies, it was exciting to see the progress made in 2011. Rather than another year of decline, these U.S. manufacturers saw 12.75% growth. That’s almost high enough…

As I mentioned in my last article on new product introduction (NPI), launching a new product is stressful—even in the best of organizations.At Arena, we’ve been working on a couple of new products ourselves, Arena PartsList and Arena PDXViewer, so…

A proud new iPhone owner in 2008 was surprised to find this photo on his brand new device. This young girl, who looks around 13 years old, works in the Foxconn plant that assembled the phone. Editor's Note (3/16/2012): This American Life…

Last week, I predicted that manufacturers would dramatically increase their adoption of cloud-based software as the benefits of cloud begin to outweigh any possible concerns. And upon further research, it appears that I am not the…

New product launches are exciting but stressful! Launch haphazardly and you will find yourself on board a sinking ship. Launch strategically and you can accelerate your time to market, minimize your overall investment and maximize your profits—and with lower risk!…