Work Smarter, Not Harder: The Power of PLM and QMS Automations
Despite detailed project plans, product teams sometimes find themselves mired in document backlogs and repetitive processes that hinder innovation. In today’s environment, manufacturers must maintain extensive documentation to meet their quality and compliance objectives. Consequently, more time and resources are allocated toward creating records, implementing changes, and verifying data accuracy.
Whether it’s generating an engineering change order (ECO) based on a corrective and preventive action (CAPA) or generating a corrective action report (CAR) based on a nonconformance material report (NCMR)—these routine activities require manual updates to supporting records and links to ensure full traceability. As documentation grows, it’s harder for teams to manage all the necessary tasks and meet deadlines. Moreover, manual updates become too labor-intensive and prone to errors.
Given these constraints, it’s no surprise that companies are adopting AI and other automation tools to enhance efficiency. According to a 2023 State of Work survey, 77% of employees reported that automating routine tasks boosts their productivity, saving an average of 3.6 hours each week1.
We recently interviewed Arena Product Manager Roy Stafford to discover how product teams leverage the Automation capabilities within Arena PLM and QMS to streamline processes and reduce their workload.
WHY ARE AUTOMATIONS IMPORTANT TO ARENA CUSTOMERS?
Roy: Our customers have business processes that span multiple worlds within Arena including Changes, Requests, and Quality. Using Arena Automations, they can automate a workflow or a series of tasks across these worlds. This Automation capability is especially useful in the Quality world, where customers are managing intricate quality processes and documentation to meet various regulatory requirements (e.g., FDA, ISO, AS9100).
By automating repetitive tasks in Arena, users can dedicate more time to critical activities and speed product development. Additionally, they eliminate errors stemming from manual data entry.
DESCRIBE SOME OF THE AUTOMATION CAPABILITIES IN ARENA.
Roy: Arena automates several processes to meet our customers’ unique business requirements. Examples include:
- Generating a CAR based on an NCMR
- Generating an ECO based on an engineering change request (ECR) or a CAPA
- Generating an audit based on a supplier corrective action report (SCAR)
- Auto filling due dates
Users do not have to monitor Arena for events or manually enter information. Arena automatically performs those activities for them.
WHAT MAKES ARENA AUTOMATIONS UNIQUE?
Roy: Unlike other PLM and QMS solutions which require custom coding to trigger automations and run tasks, Arena enables administrators with no programming experience to create their own automation workflows using a simple drag and drop interface. Our customers don’t have to write, maintain, document, or support custom software solutions to automate their processes.
Additionally, Arena logs all automation activities to help organizations monitor performance and maintain complete traceability.
WHICH PRODUCT TEAMS ARE MOST IMPACTED BY ARENA’S AUTOMATION FUNCTIONALITY?
Roy: Product teams that frequently use Arena’s quality templates and change management processes (i.e., quality, documentation control, and engineering) are most impacted by the functionality.
WHAT BENEFITS WILL CUSTOMERS REALIZE WITH THEIR UTILIZATION OF ARENA AUTOMATIONS?
Roy: Arena customers will spend less time performing manual, repetitive tasks and stay focused on high-value work. Their process automations will lead to faster product development cycles and a reduction in errors. Customers will also gain greater insights into business performance and drive continuous improvement.
WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON AUTOMATIONS CREATED BY CUSTOMERS?
Roy: Our customers configure Arena to trigger the creation of a corrective action report once a nonconformance material report reaches a certain stage. They also use Automations to generate a new audit based on any action report. The new process is subsequently routed to key stakeholders for review and approval. Additionally, customers leverage Automations to assign ECO or CAPA approval due dates based on when the change or quality process is submitted.
ARE THERE ANY CUSTOMER AUTOMATIONS THAT HAVE SURPRISED YOU?
Roy: I’m surprised by the complexity of some of their Automations. For instance, once a quality process meets certain conditions, Arena will automatically trigger several other quality processes to fulfill the organization’s business requirements.
DO YOU SEE FURTHER EXPANSION FOR THE USE OF ARENA AUTOMATIONS?
Roy: Yes. Looking ahead, Automations will extend beyond Changes, Requests, and Quality to other worlds in Arena.
Additional functionality will include:
- Ability to automate closed-loop processes
Example: Once an engineering change order is implemented, Arena automatically closes out the engineering change requests that are associated with it. - Time-based triggers
Example: Arena initiates quality processes to support quarterly audits. - Linking to Arena Analytics
Example: When a high volume of corrective action requests is flagged in the Analytics dashboard, Arena initiates a quality process or sends an alert to an administrator to address the issue.
Overall, Arena Automations is proving to be a powerful and versatile tool, empowering product teams to work smarter and faster. We’re excited to see how their use of the functionality evolves over time.
Learn more about Arena Automations. Schedule a demo.
References
Shelly St.Hill