Empowering Manufacturers: PTC Arena’s 2023 Success Story and Future Outlook
Creating new opportunities and enabling manufacturers to address the ever-changing disruptions is the new norm for solution providers. As the year closes, let’s look at how Arena, a PTC Business has provided customers with new and enhanced product lifecycle management (PLM) and quality management system (QMS) solutions to manage change, disruption, and tackle complex product development.
With innovative product releases focused on enhancements and new capabilities to meet evolving needs, Arena is helping customers transition ideas from concept to commercialization faster while driving more agile, collaborative processes for next-generation product innovators.
2023: A Year in Review
This year was full of milestones, marking the three-year anniversary of the acquisition of Arena by PTC. Here are just a few of the key milestones PTC Arena has achieved this year.
Product Investment and Innovation
This was the year for product investment and innovation. Along with further enhancements to Arena’s cloud-native solutions, PTC helped drive two key product development initiatives with the Onshape-Arena Connection and a new Arena 3D Viewer powered by PTC technology.
Unifying CAD, PDM, and PLM in the Cloud
PTC’s vision to connect its cloud-native CAD, PDM, and PLM solutions came to fruition in 2022 and delivered even more enhancements this year. An industry first, the Onshape-Arena Connection brings cloud-native CAD, PDM, and PLM together. Customers can manage the release, revision, and change management process between their CAD and PLM solutions with a single click. This functionality makes it easier for product data to flow from engineering to operations as well as supply chain partners.
3D Visualization is another product innovation delivered in 2023. To help further improve collaboration, the new Arena 3D Viewer powered by PTC technology enables product teams and supply chain partners to view, validate, and access 3D CAD models stored in Arena without the need for additional software. The 3D Viewer helps drive even faster design reviews and approvals for customers.
Continued Focus on the Customer
Arena introduced a new online community to connect Arena PLM/QMS professionals and foster communication. The Arena Influencers hub offers discussion forums, self-solve technical support, virtual customer events, and the opportunity to engage with practitioners and participate in fun activities to earn redeemable rewards. Customer response to this platform has been overwhelming.
Reconnecting With Customers and Planning Future Events
This year was the chance to reconnect with customers in person. Arena hosted its first regional Arena Connection customer event at the SAP Center in San Jose, California. The events are designed to bring Arena teams, customers, and partners together to discuss a myriad of topics. The event’s agenda included Arena’s product road map and strategy, a customer panel discussion on product development best practices, and the chance to network and share information. Based on the success and feedback, more events throughout the U.S. and parts of Europe are being scheduled for the new year.
LiveWorx Returns in Person: Arena’s Debut With Training and Best-Practice Sessions
LiveWorx, PTC’s signature event, hosted its four-day gathering in person for the first time since COVID. The event brought more than 10,000 in-person customers, partners, and analysts, as well as virtual attendees, to learn and share information about PTC’s industry-leading technologies. Arena was excited to take part in LiveWorx for the first time and offered a series of product training and best-practice sessions designed to help customers maximize their Arena experience and improve product development processes.
What’s in Store for 2024?
Sustainability is not going away. It will continue to be a top priority for product manufacturers. While business leaders think sustainability is important, just 60% in the U.S. have a sustainability strategy in place.1 Europe still holds the lead with 44% while 22% are in the Asia Pacific region.2 With over-burdened supply chains and tighter regulations imposed on business operations, sustainability is no longer an option.
Many companies are realizing that leveraging PLM and QMS solutions helps address sustainability in the early stages of the design process to ensure their products, processes, and systems are created to reduce a negative impact on the environment and society.
Arena’s Commitment to Sustainability in Product Lifecycle Management
Arena is actively committed to helping support sustainability within product development, manufacturing, and post-sale service—from designing products to be renewable/recyclable at the end of their lifecycle, driving cross-functional collaboration to enable sustainable component visibility, to minimizing production errors and quality defects that result in scrap, recalls, or waste.
Leveraging Emerging Technologies in Product Design
With the need to keep costs down in times of economic uncertainty, business leaders are looking at ways to pivot in real time and be receptive, yet responsive to customer needs. To do this, new and emerging technologies are playing key roles in providing better methodologies to design products that not only meet customer demand and offer value but enable the company to scale. Arena PLM and QMS will continue to find new ways to help manufacturers and product designers transform their digital designs into innovative products.
Sustainable Product Development and Advanced Technologies
While 2023 was a productive year, we’re excited for what’s ahead in 2024. We asked George Lewis, Vice President of Growth Strategy for PTC Arena, what we can expect in the coming year. He said, “With ongoing supply chain challenges, green compliance requirements, and other unforeseen disruptions—global manufacturers will look for better ways to drive sustainable product development processes and tap into newer technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). In particular, the need to enable real-time collaboration across the value chain will be key to offset many challenges and help with analyzing supplier relationships to identify risk factors like component shortages, end-of-life (EOL) material issues, or not recommended for new designs “(NRFND).”
With a new year around the corner, Arena will continue to make the customer experience a top priority by providing customers with cutting-edge solutions, and better process controls that not only impact the product throughout its entire lifecycle but help address the ever-changing disruptions companies continue to face.
Sources cited:
Joseph Prock