Agile PLM vs Arbortext

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Our analysts compared Agile PLM vs Arbortext based on data from our 400+ point analysis of PLM Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Agile PLM Software Tool
Arbortext Software Tool

Product Basics

Agile PLM gives organizations visibility across the product lifecycle while also ensuring consistency and regulatory compliance. The program is deployable through the cloud, making it accessible to users at any time and any location, provided an internet connection is available. It centralizes operations to reduce duplicate processes and provide users with actionable insights to optimize production.
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PTC Arbortext is an end-to-end publishing and content authoring solution designed to help manufacturing organizations streamline the delivery of technical publications. It allows users to maintain a digital thread of dynamic data to boost consistency with real-time synchronization and a single source of data truth.

Users can create high-quality content by writing XML documents and creating stylesheets, complete with 2D and 3D illustrations. Automation capabilities include auto-generating content, automating publishing, formatting and printing. It also supports multi-channel delivery and multi-language formatting.

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$13,800 Annually, Quote-Based
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$700/Seat, One-Time
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
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Linux
Android
Chromebook
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Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
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On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Visibility: The program offers dashboards to help users share information and insights from across the product lifecycle. 
  • Collaboration: Employees from various departments can work together on designs and ensure that all relevant ideas are put into action. Engineering collaboration is a key feature included in the solution and allows everyone to be on the same page when it comes to product developments. 
  • Accessibility: Agile PLM is available as a cloud-based solution, meaning it’s accessible at any time and any location as long as there’s an internet connection. 
  • Compliance: The system helps ensure compliance with industry standards. You can also configure your solution so that all of your processes adhere to your unique business requirements. 
  • Quality Control: The program aligns elements such as workflows and product requirements across the entire lifecycle to ensure consistency. 
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  • Improve Productivity: Save time with reusable XML component-based content and automated formatting. Minimize programming by creating, updating and simplifying stylesheet creation.
  • Simplify Content Management: Gain a single source of truth for all your technical documentation. Centralize stylesheets, layouts, formatting, and service and product information, eliminating scattered information and streamlining your content lifecycle.
  • Enhance Technical Content Quality: Deliver error-free documentation by enforcing stylesheets that automate information layout and delivery. Improve content reusability, enforce style guides and ensure regulatory compliance with approved information.
  • Increase Automation: Minimize manual tasks by automating publishing processes, formatting, layout tasks, and the delivery of multi-channel and multi-language service and product information.
  • Reduce Publishing Production Costs: Develop a single source for styling criteria and formats to eliminate disparities and rework from multiple stylesheets, languages and document types. Minimize the costs of distributing and printing paper copies of product information.
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  • Collaborative Environment: The program lets users centralize and manage aspects such as SKUs, finished products, assemblies and sub-assemblies. The user interface offers System Navigators, Quick Views and Structure Navigators, as well. The program gives all users visibility by tracking factors such as products in transition, items in review and issues in resolution. 
  • Quality Management: Agile PLM helps ensure that developed products are of the highest quality by aligning process preferences, organizational goals and regulatory needs across your company. The system also gives you instant visibility when issues or resolutions occur within the product record. 
  • Portfolio Management: Distributed task management, Phase Gate project management and dynamic portfolios give users more visibility, regulatory control and development flexibility when working on projects. You can manage resources, deliverables, product development schedules and add dynamic links to other PLM processes in this system. It also includes a Gate chart editor, which offers direct interaction with enterprise PLM process context and gives users more flexibility. 
  • Cost Management: Agile PLM lets suppliers input whether or not they can meet your company’s volume requirements and cost targets through a secure Request for Quote (RFQ) process. The solution enables your company to interact with various suppliers about elements such as pricing, performance and strategic relationships. 
  • Governance and Compliance: The system contains a compliance engine that’s integrated with the enterprise product record. The engine offers open workflows, which can be configured to meet a company’s unique requirements. When issues arise, the program supports a resolution in a recorded, complete and closed-loop manner. Design for manufacturing, design for compliance and design for quality also complement one another within the solution. 
  • Centralized Engineering: This function includes substantive and visual interaction coupled with authoring tools to help with modeling and product creation. The solution lets you easily transfer data from design authoring tools to generate accurate visual representations of assemblies and parts. 
  • Analytics: Role-based, easy-to-use dashboards provide more visibility into the product lifecycle. This assists with the identification of product risks, quality trends and failure modes to improve product performance and quality. 
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  • Content Creation: Use the editor to create standardized content for multiple media formats. Auto-generate text using language-specific collation rules. Incorporate editable, intelligent graphics and embed 2D and 3D animation or illustrations in web and interactive content.
  • Structured Editor: Simplify technical content creation with word-processing capabilities like change tracking, drag-and-drop editing and keyboard macros.
  • Real-time CAD Data: Gather and use real-time CAD data to develop illustrations and animations more quickly. Ensure product information and graphics are accurate with IsoDraw’s ability to update objects and change specifications throughout the production cycle. Create output in multiple data formats including raster graphics, 2D, 3D and animations.
  • Automated Document Creation: Automate formatting and document layouts prior to publication with the Advanced Print Publisher tool. Minimize time spent manually editing graphics, text and other features in formats including XML, JPG, GIF, CGM and SVG.
  • Stylesheet Creation: Create stylesheets with the styler tool, which allows users to develop a set of standards and rules across stylesheets. Ensure content and product quality and consistency along the product lifecycle in multiple layouts and languages.
  • Multichannel Content Delivery: Generate one or more different types of dynamic output simultaneously to multiple formats. Take single-source content and publish it across multiple channels.
  • Multi-Language Formatting: Export generated text as a separate file to translate and create multi-language stylesheets. Increase reusability by using multiple numbering schemes to meet regional numbering rules and mirroring page layout definitions for right-to-left languages.
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Product Ranking

#7

among all
PLM Software

#9

among all
PLM Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 137 reviews
Great User Sentiment 26 reviews
81%
of users recommend this product

Agile PLM has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 81% when considering 137 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

84%
of users recommend this product

Arbortext has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 84% when considering 26 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

5.0 (8)
n/a
4.0 (59)
4.2 (25)
4.19 (21)
n/a
4.2 (21)
n/a
3.7 (28)
4.0 (1)

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Improved Collaboration: Users highlight that Agile PLM facilitates better communication and teamwork, particularly between engineering and manufacturing departments.
Streamlined Processes: Many users appreciate the way Agile PLM helps to simplify and automate complex product development processes, leading to faster time-to-market.
Enhanced Visibility: Users value the increased transparency and real-time insights into product data that Agile PLM provides, enabling better decision-making.
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Improved Collaboration: Foster seamless collaboration across engineering and design with manufacturing and marketing departments. The centralized platform eliminates information silos and ensures everyone has access to updated product data, reducing communication errors and delays.
Enhanced Product Quality: Facilitate a controlled and standardized approach to product development with features like change order tracking and revision control. Real-time updates ensure everyone is working on the latest version of product specifications, minimizing the risk of errors and improving overall product quality.
Streamlined Supply Chain Management: Integrate with supplier databases and other supply chain management tools to improve communication and coordination with suppliers, leading to more efficient procurement processes and faster time-to-market.
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Usability Issues: Users have reported that Agile PLM can be difficult to use, especially for those who are new to PLM software. The interface is not intuitive and requires extensive training to learn. For example, some users have complained about the complexity of creating and managing workflows.
Performance Problems: Agile PLM has been known to suffer from performance issues, particularly when dealing with large amounts of data. This can lead to slow response times and make it difficult to complete tasks efficiently. For instance, users have reported slow loading times when searching for parts or documents.
Integration Challenges: Integrating Agile PLM with other business systems can be challenging. This is because Agile PLM uses a proprietary data model that is not compatible with many other systems. As a result, companies may need to invest significant time and resources to integrate Agile PLM with their existing IT infrastructure.
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Complex Implementation: Implementing a PLM system can be complex and time-consuming. Businesses need to invest time in data migration, user training and system configuration to ensure a smooth transition.
High Initial Investment: The cost of PLM software is not as cheap as chips, especially for larger companies with complex product lifecycles. Licensing fees, implementation costs and ongoing maintenance charges can add up quickly.
Data Migration: Migrating existing product data from legacy systems to a new PLM platform opens a whole new can of worms. Incomplete or dirty data or inconsistent formatting can lead to problems down the road, so data quality and consistency require careful attention during migration.
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Is Agile PLM nimble enough to navigate the complex world of product lifecycle management? Users of Agile PLM have given the software high marks for its ease of use, flexibility, and value for money. They also praised the software's customer support team, which was quick to respond to questions and resolve issues. Agile PLM is considered a well-rounded solution, especially suited for large enterprises due to its comprehensive nature. However, specific strengths, weaknesses, and differentiating factors, beyond general mentions of ease of use and flexibility, haven't been detailed in recent reviews. While users appreciate the customer support, this aspect doesn't necessarily differentiate Agile PLM, as good customer support should be a standard across similar products. Based on available information, Agile PLM appears suitable for companies of all sizes and industries seeking a user-friendly and adaptable PLM solution. However, without detailed insights into its specific strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors like Aras PLM or Teamcenter, it's challenging to definitively pinpoint its ideal user base beyond a general preference for ease of use and robust customer support. More nuanced user feedback would be needed to provide a truly in-depth analysis.

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PTC Arbortext is a content authoring tool designed to streamline the creation, management and delivery of technical documentation. Its focus on reusability through XML components and automated formatting helps users save time and reduce errors. Additionally, it centralizes product information and enforces stylesheets to ensure consistency across various media formats.Beyond core content creation functionalities, it offers features like real-time CAD data integration, automated document creation and multi-channel content delivery. While pricing isn't publicly advertised, it likely follows a tiered licensing structure based on required features. Overall, it offers organizations an effective way to optimize technical content creation and delivery and maintain a digital thread.

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