Digi Breaks Down Silos With Arena PLM and Part Analytics Integration

About the company

Digi provides IoT connectivity products, services, and solutions for a wide range of industries and applications, from enterprise and industrial to transportation and smart cities. With over 35,000 customers across the globe, the next-generation technology provider aimed to enhance its product development and supply chain operations by integrating the product lifecycle management (PLM) information, living inside Arena PLM, with their sourcing and supply management platform, Part Analytics. This change was driven by the challenges Digi encountered in aligning its engineering, sourcing, and supply chain operations—a common hurdle in the fast-paced electronics industry.

Business challenges

Diverging Data Sources: Engineering teams managed bills of materials (BOMs) within Arena while sourcing and supply chain teams used different platforms for their operations. This led to data silos, making it difficult to maintain a single source of truth across the product lifecycle.

Out-of-Sync BOMs: Changes to BOMs made by the engineering team were not automatically updated in the supply chain and sourcing data. This lack of synchronization led to error-prone, time-consuming manual data transfers impacting supply chain efficiency and responsiveness.

Siloed Operations: Data fragmentation fostered siloed operations within Digi, hindering effective collaboration among teams and with external partners such as OEMs, EMS suppliers, distributors, and component manufacturers—key players in maintaining a resilient and agile supply chain.

The solution

An integration between Arena PLM and Part Analytics enables Digi to seamlessly sync their BOMs with critical supply chain and sourcing information. BOM information is enriched with valuable insights like availability, cost, lead time, and product lifecycle, enabling Digi’s engineering and sourcing teams to make better decisions and enhance production speed and quality.

Results

Digi’s integration of Arena PLM with Part Analytics revolutionized their approach to product development and supply chain management. They experienced incredible improvements in operational efficiency, decision-making accuracy, and collaboration, both internally and with external partners. Notably:

• A significant reduction in manual data entry and synchronization errors
• Enhanced visibility across the entire product lifecycle
• Improved agility and responsiveness in the supply chain

These outcomes drove impressive results. By digitizing their once-manual data management, and augmenting sourcing operations with automated analysis and alerts, Digi realized efficiency gains upwards of 50%.

“Before integrating our PLM data with Part Analytics, managing BOMs was challenging. There was constant back-and-forth between engineering and our supply chain teams, and manual updates were cumbersome and error-prone, leading to delays and increased costs,” said Greg Snell, Senior Strategic Sourcing Manager at Digi. “Now, with both systems integrated, it’s like that true ‘Aha!’ moment. Our BOMs are always accurate and up-to-date, and our teams are all on the same page. This significantly streamlined our operations, cutting time spent on manual tasks in half and letting us focus on innovation rather than getting bogged down by data management challenges.”

The successful integration of Arena’s PLM information with Part Analytics exemplifies how leveraging advanced technological solutions can overcome complex challenges in the electronics industry. Using BOM data from Arena enriched with critical insights from Part Analytics allowed Digi to engage in more strategic decision-making and fully informed sourcing analysis. As a result, they identified massive cost-savings opportunities, demonstrating the substantial impact of integrating detailed component data into their procurement processes. Moreover, by bridging the gap with external partners, Digi has set a new standard for efficiency and collaboration, effectively doubling the pace of their RFX negotiations.

“In electronics manufacturing, agility and collaboration aren’t just buzzwords, they’re essential components of success. The fragmented nature of our previous systems posed big barriers to achieving this. By integrating Arena and Part Analytics, we’ve effectively broken down those barriers, enabling seamless collaboration both internally and with our partners,” said Terry Schneider, Vice President of Supply Chain Management at Digi. “This has not only enhanced our responsiveness but also provided us with the insights needed to make strategic decisions swiftly. The impact on our supply chain’s efficiency and our bottom line has been profound. It’s clear that this integration was not just an operational decision but a strategic move that has set us apart in the industry.”