Connected and Agile Processes Speed Time to Market

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About the Company

There’s a Musician in Every Human Being

Music Tribe believes that there’s a “musician in every human being” waiting to be discovered, nurtured, and celebrated. Its purpose is to unlock the musical potential within each individual and create a world where everyone has the opportunity to experience the transformative power of music. They are driven by the conviction that music is a universal language that connects us all, transcending boundaries and enriching lives.

Music Tribe’s mission is to “empower the ones who have not and cannot.” They are committed to breaking down barriers and providing access to musical education, resources, and tools for individuals who may not have had the opportunity to explore their musical talents. Through their initiatives, they seek to foster creativity, self-expression, and personal growth, ensuring that no one is left behind on their musical journey.

Music Tribe serves as a global provider of audio and music equipment, showcasing iconic brands such as Midas, Turbosound, Tannoy, Lab Gruppen, Behringer, TC Electronic, Aston Microphones, and many more. Music Tribe has transformed into a customer- and digital-obsessed organization. Through partnerships with Microsoft and other cutting-edge technology companies, Music Tribe drives innovation to enhance the customer experience.

AT A GLANCE

SYSTEM USED

Arena PLM

Best Thing About Arena

Seamless cloud-native connection with Onshape streamlines the end-to-end engineering lifecycle in product development

Bottom-Line Impact

Speeds the transfer of Music Tribe’s product designs to manufacturing and improves time to market

Key Benefits

  • Provides single source of truth for accurate and compliant product information
  • Streamlines the flow of product information across engineers, downstream product teams, and external partners
  • Keeps distributed teams connected throughout the entire product development process
  • Reduces production errors, mitigating costly scrap and rework
  • Seamlessly integrates with engineering design and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions
  • Accelerates PLM implementation with dedicated support from solution consultants and success coaches
  • 100% user adoption within three days of go-live

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Fulfilling Music Tribe’s mission of making music equipment globally accessible is a significant undertaking. The company’s highly complex and vast product information, combined with a global operation involving 350 engineers and a network of partners in 134 countries, posed challenges.

They needed a comprehensive product development solution to streamline information flow across distributed teams and ensure timely product delivery. A robust system was also critical to support compliance with environmental regulations and quality standards.

Initially, Music Tribe used PTC’s cloud-native Onshape solution for mechanical CAD (mCAD) designs but faced difficulties disseminating information due to an inadequate product lifecycle management (PLM) system.

Because their legacy PLM system was difficult to set up, maintain, and use, it sat idle for two years—leading to manual data entry errors and hindering design changes. “Our Siemens PLM system was built on an old consultant-style business model with an outdated user interface. Furthermore, the PLM consultants and trainers were expensive. We realized that we had to make a change and implement a new system quickly,” stated Uli Behringer, CEO of Music Tribe.

Integrate Arena PLM with ERP system
Integrate Arena PLM with ERP system

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Fulfilling Music Tribe’s mission of making music equipment globally accessible is a significant undertaking. The company’s highly complex and vast product information, combined with a global operation involving 350 engineers and a network of partners in 134 countries, posed challenges.

They needed a comprehensive product development solution to streamline information flow across distributed teams and ensure timely product delivery. A robust system was also critical to support compliance with environmental regulations and quality standards.

Initially, Music Tribe used PTC’s cloud-native Onshape solution for mechanical CAD (mCAD) designs but faced difficulties disseminating information due to an inadequate product lifecycle management (PLM) system.

Because their legacy PLM system was difficult to set up, maintain, and use, it sat idle for two years—leading to manual data entry errors and hindering design changes. “Our Siemens PLM system was built on an old consultant-style business model with an outdated user interface. Furthermore, the PLM consultants and trainers were expensive. We realized that we had to make a change and implement a new system quickly,” stated Uli Behringer, CEO of Music Tribe.

THE SOLUTION

To overcome their product development challenges, Music Tribe invested in Arena PLM, choosing it for its quick deployment and seamless connection with Onshape.

Arena’s cloud-native software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform offered Music Tribe flexibility in relocating operations without disruptions. Despite the complexity and volume of product information, Arena PLM was deployed swiftly. Arena’s team of solution consultants and customer success coaches collaborated regularly with Music Tribe throughout the implementation process to ensure a smooth data migration. Extensive end-user trainings and PLM best practices were also provided to ensure a successful adoption by all of Music Tribe’s key stakeholders.

Blue quote mark

We achieved a user adoption rate of 100% within only three days of go-live. The team at Arena has been exceptionally helpful, competent, and dedicated to our organization.”

—Uli Behringer, CEO, Music Tribe

RESULTS

Today, Music Tribe leverages Arena’s “out-of-the-box” PLM and QMS capabilities. They don’t need coding to reap the full benefits of the system. Quality processes are now fully digitized.

Arena’s user-defined access controls allow secure collaboration with suppliers. Ticket Management enables Music Tribe to efficiently identify and resolve product issues. Additionally, Music Tribe uses Arena’s Training module to manage training activities and efficiently track employee and supplier progress.

Connected Systems From Design to Manufacturing

Through the Onshape-Arena Connection, Music Tribe drives more agile product development processes. With a simple click, the entire product BOM and associated changes are synchronized across both systems, enabling extended product teams and partners to optimize designs before passing them on to manufacturing.

Arena’s integration with the Altium eCAD system enables teams to work with full product BOMs, encompassing both mechanical and electrical components. “The integration was a comprehensive process that involved migrating product data and configuring the system with Altium. Arena’s pre-built API integration package made the entire process seamless,” added Behringer.

Arena’s support team facilitated the cleanup of product information to support another integration with Music Tribe’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Looking ahead, Music Tribe plans to add certifications to Arena so that their compliance evidence links directly to the product record. The company will also map Arena to a web portal for partner communication with the goal of enhancing partner compliance.

Now, with a trusted single source of truth and fully connected systems, Music Tribe delivers high-quality products faster and at a much lower cost, realizing its mission of bringing musical equipment to musicians who have not and cannot.

Connected Systems From Design to Manufacturing

Through the Onshape-Arena Connection, Music Tribe drives more agile product development processes. With a simple click, the entire product BOM and associated changes are synchronized across both systems, enabling extended product teams and partners to optimize designs before passing them on to manufacturing.

Arena’s integration with the Altium eCAD system enables teams to work with full product BOMs, encompassing both mechanical and electrical components. “The integration was a comprehensive process that involved migrating product data and configuring the system with Altium. Arena’s pre-built API integration package made the entire process seamless,” added Behringer.

Arena’s support team facilitated the cleanup of product information to support another integration with Music Tribe’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Looking ahead, Music Tribe plans to add certifications to Arena so that their compliance evidence links directly to the product record. The company will also map Arena to a web portal for partner communication with the goal of enhancing partner compliance.

Now, with a trusted single source of truth and fully connected systems, Music Tribe delivers high-quality products faster and at a much lower cost, realizing its mission of bringing musical equipment to musicians who have not and cannot.