Arena’s cloud product development solutions have fueled success for over 1,400 life sciences, aerospace, and high-tech electronics manufacturers. Prior to using Arena PLM and QMS, many of these companies were accustomed to working with manual or siloed systems which created confusion and errors from design to manufacturing. Here are just a few examples highlighting how companies overcame obstacles and achieved commercialization success with the adoption of Arena’s cloud-based product development solutions.
Globally recognized for delivering intelligent and connected energy systems for over a thousand solar power plants worldwide, Nextracker, a Flex Company, is one of the fastest-growing cleantech companies in solar today. Its breakthrough technology enables plant owners to harvest the sun more efficiently, at lower costs, and with more flexibility.
Prior to Arena, the company did not have a single source of truth system to track and manage its engineering design and development processes. Product information was tracked manually in workbooks, spreadsheets, and personal file folders, requiring too much reliance on tribal knowledge.
Rapid growth, coupled with the need to collaborate with a global team, meant that Nextracker needed to modify its product development processes. After implementing Arena’s cloud-based PLM solution, Nextracker was able to cut review and approval times by nearly 60%, eliminate time-zone delays with global partners, and accelerate product introductions by 25%.
“Arena PLM has changed the way to design and get products to market. It is the well-oiled machine that complex, global product companies need to run their business. We have a much faster and transparent process that allows for better visibility to identify where obstacles lie and helps us become even more efficient.”
—Ratana Lee, Senior Manager, NPI Master Archivist
Accuryn Medical is a predictive health company pioneering the next generation of medical devices with smart sensors and artificial intelligence. The company developed the Accuryn Monitoring System, which enables the remote monitoring of urine output, intra-abdominal pressure, and core body temperature to help guide clinicians in treating critically ill patients. The system’s remote monitoring capabilities are also helping frontline workers combat the spread of COVID-19.
Prior to adopting a cloud-based QMS solution, Accuryn’s product and quality information was managed using paper-based processes, where bills of materials (BOMs) were documented on paper and then uploaded to a manufacturing system. Engineering change orders (ECOs) were also reviewed manually with limited supplier communication.
“We didn’t have a system that was robust enough for new product introduction and compliance processes. We had FDA clearance, but our product was not commercialized yet and our current manual processes would not scale or hold up to the scrutiny of audits,” stated Sanjay Banerjee, COO for Accuryn Medical.
Since implementing Arena QMS, Accuryn has seen significant improvements across product design and quality, including the improvement of product nonconformance by nearly 20% and a decrease in complaint resolution cycle time by 25%.
“We have all the phases of design and development managed in Arena QMS. This includes secure access for our suppliers, which are located globally, allowing them to be notified immediately of any change and ensure their system is up to date.”
—Sanjay Banerjee, COO
With its mission to provide the most modular cyber-electronics systems in the world, Spectranetix has pioneered hardware and software solutions for defense primes, military groups, government agencies, and commercial industries.
Initially, Spectranetix relied on engineering tools, spreadsheets, and emails to conduct early concept and prototype design work. To support its rapid growth and shift to product commercialization in the highly regulated defense sector, the company needed a secure, controlled process for managing product development, undergoing customer risk-based assessment audits, and demonstrating thorough configuration management practices.
After adopting Arena PLM for AWS GovCloud, Spectranetix was able to effectively manage product development and change processes. The company was also able to run nonconformance material report (NCMR) and corrective and preventive action (CAPA) processes and conduct supply chain management with better traceability.
“We’ve developed strong working models of processes that now include remote teams—Arena supports all this with ease in a secure platform. Since going live with Arena, the benefits have been countless.”
—Don Perkins, Director of Hardware Engineering & Operations
Filtronic is a leading designer and manufacturer of high-performance radio frequency (RF) devices and subsystems for telecommunication infrastructure, aerospace and defense, and critical communications.
Prior to Arena, Filtronic relied on a database platform which kept their design, manufacturing, and quality documents siloed. This made it difficult to track compliance and issues with parts. Furthermore, they were not able to implement changes quickly enough to enable collaboration across multiple teams and time zones.
After adopting Arena PLM, Filtronic’s teams gained complete visibility of critical product processes and were able to easily track requirements, revisions, quality, and compliance. They were also able to easily track issues with parts and take the necessary corrective actions to ensure customer satisfaction.
“We selected Arena to bring our global teams closer together. It’s a very visible system that benefits all of our projects and is now an integral part of our business processes.”
—Richard Rushton, Quality Environmental Health & Safety Manager