Yes, Arena supports no-code configuration and low-code capabilities, enabling product companies to adapt product lifecycle management (PLM) and quality management system (QMS) processes to their business requirements. Arena Automations enables administrators to configure and automate workflows without writing custom code, while the Arena Developer platform provides low-code integration tools to connect Arena with other enterprise systems.
These capabilities help companies automate repetitive tasks, configure product and quality processes, and connect information across their digital product ecosystem without extensive custom development.
Arena is designed to enable companies to configure PLM and QMS processes without building and maintaining custom software.
Arena automations provide a graphical interface that lets Arena administrators define triggers and actions without writing custom code. Companies can use these capabilities to automate routine processes that would otherwise require teams to manually create records, copy information, link records, or initiate subsequent processes. This approach can reduce reliance on development resources while allowing organizations to adapt Arena to established business processes.
Arena Automations allow administrators to define triggers that initiate specific tasks or processes. When the specified condition is met, Arena automatically performs the associated tasks. Depending on the process, these tasks can include:
For example, companies can configure Arena to:
Automating these steps can reduce repetitive administrative work and help ensure consistent adherence to established processes.
Arena Automations can support workflows for changes, requests, and quality processes. This is important because product development and quality management are closely connected. For example, an engineering change may affect product documentation, manufacturing requirements, quality records, suppliers, and regulatory information. Rather than requiring users to manually initiate every related activity, they can define triggers in Arena to start subsequent engineering change or quality processes.
Quality teams can also configure quality approval processes with company-specific steps and terminology. Responsibilities can be assigned at multiple levels, helping companies establish processes aligned with their quality and compliance requirements. By integrating product and quality processes into a single environment, Arena helps companies maintain visibility and traceability as information flows through the product lifecycle.
Many PLM and QMS processes involve repetitive administrative tasks. Employees may need to create records, transfer information, update fields, link records, assign reviewers, and verify that each step is complete. Arena automations can perform many of these tasks using predefined business rules.
Reducing these manual steps can help companies shorten process cycle times and reduce the risk of data entry errors. It also enables engineering, quality, operations, and documentation teams to spend less time maintaining processes and more time on product development and quality activities.
Arena Automations can be especially valuable as organizations grow and the number of product records, changes, quality processes, and approvals grows.
Arena logs automation activity, providing organizations with full traceability of automated transactions and processes. This traceability is important for companies operating in regulated industries or in environments where product and quality activities must be documented. Automated processes can also link related records, helping organizations maintain connections among product information, engineering changes, and quality processes.
For example, Arena QMS connects quality activities directly with the product record, including parts, bill of materials (BOMs), drawings, and documents. This helps teams understand the product information associated with a quality issue or change, rather than managing these records in separate systems.
Arena extends beyond no-code process configuration through the Arena Developer platform. The developer platform provides low-code tools, representational state transfer application programming interfaces representational state transfer application programing interface (RESTful APIs), secure data services, and other integration capabilities that companies can use to connect Arena with their broader enterprise technology environment.
Arena’s low-code integration engine provides an abstraction layer over the API and is designed to meet common integration requirements, including bulk imports, bulk exports, and event-driven data movement. Companies can use Arena Integration Engine components via the user interface to achieve a low-code experience. This gives organizations another option between preconfigured connections and fully custom API development.
Most organizations rely on custom integrations to transfer information between systems. This approach can be costly to build, difficult to maintain, and highly dependent on specialized IT resources, including third-party vendors and development partners.
Arena’s latest capability, Arena Connect, helps manufacturers connect business applications, other Arena workspaces, and automated workflows across the product value chain. This makes it easier to move information between the systems teams rely on.
Arena Connect is an embedded iPaaS solution that provides customers with access to a powerful workflow engine and a governance dashboard for connecting business applications and automating workflows. Because it’s embedded directly within Arena PLM and QMS, customers can manage integrations on the same platform they already use to manage product and quality information.
Arena’s low-code and developer capabilities are designed to support connections among PLM and QMS information and other enterprise applications.
Depending on business requirements, companies can connect Arena with systems such as:
The developer platform includes tools for importing and exporting information, extracting datasets, monitoring events, and using RESTful APIs for more advanced integration requirements.
Arena also offers productized connections and an ecosystem of integration partners, providing companies with multiple ways to build a connected digital product thread.
Arena’s no-code and low-code capabilities address a range of business requirements. No-code configuration focuses on configuring and automating processes within Arena. Administrators can define triggers and tasks through a graphical interface without writing custom code.
Low-code capabilities provide greater flexibility for integrating and routing data flows between Arena and external systems. The Arena developer platform can support organizations that need to connect PLM and QMS to enterprise resource planning (ERP), computer-aided design (CAD), manufacturing execution system (MES), analytics platforms, or other applications. Companies can therefore choose an approach based on the complexity of the requirement rather than treating every workflow or integration as a custom software project.
Product development processes evolve as companies introduce new products, enter regulated markets, expand their supply chains, or implement enterprise systems. A PLM and QMS platform must support these changes without introducing unnecessary development or maintenance overhead. Arena’s no-code configuration helps organizations adjust processes and automate repetitive tasks without custom programming. Its low-code integration capabilities provide additional flexibility when information must flow between Arena and other enterprise systems.
This combination enables companies to configure PLM and QMS processes to align with their business requirements while maintaining the ability to scale their digital product ecosystem over time. For companies evaluating Arena, this means workflow automation and system connectivity do not have to rely entirely on custom software development. Arena provides no-code tools for business process automation, low-code tools for common integration needs, and APIs for situations requiring deeper customization.
Yes. Arena provides no-code configuration and Arena automations, allowing administrators to define triggers and tasks via a graphical interface without writing custom code.
Arena automations can support changes, requests, and quality processes. They can perform tasks such as creating related records, copying information, linking records, adding approvers, and initiating subsequent processes.
Yes. The Arena developer platform includes a low-code integration engine that simplifies common integration requirements, such as imports, exports, event queues, and data movement between Arena and other systems.
Yes. Arena’s integration capabilities support connections to ERP, CAD, MES, business intelligence platforms, and other enterprise or custom applications. Available approaches include productized integrations, low-code tools, partner solutions, and RESTful APIs.
Yes. Arena logs automation activities to provide visibility and traceability. Related processes and records can also remain connected, helping organizations maintain a documented history of product and quality activities.
