Headquartered in Molde, Norway, Nofence invented the world’s first commercial virtual fencing system for grazing livestock. Its technology helps farmers manage animals with greater flexibility and precision across a range of applications, from rotational grazing to wildfire prevention. With an intuitive mobile app, farmers define pasture boundaries, while GPS-enabled collars send audio cues to guide animals away from restricted areas. The collars also collect data on the animals’ behavior and health. The platform supports cattle, sheep, and goats through a connected ecosystem of hardware, firmware, mobile networks, satellites, and collar-to-collar communication. Today, Nofence serves customers in Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and the United States.
Arena PLM
Provides Nofence’s global product teams and manufacturing partners with a single source of truth for managing bills of materials (BOMs), engineering changes, specifications, compliance evidence, and approved sourcing data
Helps Nofence enhance product traceability, execute changes faster, reduce risk, and scale with confidence
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Arena PLM
Provides Nofence’s global product teams and manufacturing partners with a single source of truth for managing bills of materials (BOMs), engineering changes, specifications, compliance evidence, and approved sourcing data
Helps Nofence enhance product traceability, execute changes faster, reduce risk, and scale with confidence
Nofence is continuously refining its virtual fencing platform while managing high-volume production. Nearly every mechanical component and many electronic parts are custom-made, resulting in an extensive product record that encompasses specifications, multilevel BOMs, sourcing details, validation protocols, and manufacturing requirements.
Engineers need the flexibility to develop new revisions as operations teams coordinate approved changes with electronics manufacturing services (EMS) partners. Because the same core system is shipped to customers across diverse markets, each product update must address different use cases without compromising precision.
Early on, product BOMs were managed in spreadsheets and folder structures, scattered across multiple locations. Consequently, employees spent valuable time searching for the latest information.
Compounding matters, the company communicated product updates to manufacturing partners through email and document packages. “We would zip the whole folder structure, send it over, and then try to explain what had changed,” stated Steinar Fagerli, Lead Manufacturing Engineer at Nofence.
This manual, disconnected approach made it difficult for the company to maintain an authoritative record of each change, confirm implementation activities, and ensure that every stakeholder was working from the right revision.
As its product expanded to tens of thousands of farmers across Europe and North America, Nofence needed to scale production, onboard new employees, and maintain a trusted product record across every stage of development.
“We realized we needed a cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) solution that could give our global teams a single source of truth and support our continued growth. The system had to help us innovate quickly while minimizing risk,” added Fagerli.
After evaluating multiple PLM solutions, Nofence selected Arena for its fast implementation, ease of use, web-based accessibility, and ability to accommodate existing BOMs and sourcing information.
Several employees had used Arena previously, which helped accelerate the selection and adoption process. Team members who were new to the platform quickly became familiar with its item, BOM, and change structures.
Arena’s cloud-native architecture was especially important as Nofence expanded beyond Norway and built a workforce spanning three continents. Global product teams and partners can access accurate, up-to-date product information anytime and anywhere without relying on replicated files.
—Steinar Fagerli, Lead Manufacturing Engineer, Nofence
Arena’s structured BOMs mirror how each system is built, helping employees across the organization understand how individual components connect to assemblies and finished products.
Certificates for environmental regulations, such as REACH, RoHS, and WEEE, are linked directly to the product record, making it easy for teams to access and track compliance evidence. Arena also maintains detailed records of the raw materials used in each product. “Our investors want to know the quantities of gold, lead, and other raw materials in our products,” said Fagleri. “Tracking and reporting this information is an important part of how we do business.”
The centralized, connected record also supports everyday sourcing activities. Procurement teams can quickly locate component requirements, evaluate alternative suppliers, and forward potential sources to engineering for review.
Arena’s advanced supply chain collaboration functionality enables manufacturing partners to have their own user-defined accounts with controlled access to BOMs, files, specifications, and approved changes. With each engineering change order (ECO), they can clearly see what is changing and how the update should be implemented.
Since adopting Arena PLM, Nofence has rolled out the system to core contributors across engineering, product development, manufacturing operations, sourcing, logistics, and UX.
The organization has realized several operational improvements with Arena, including:
Arena provides Nofence employees with a more efficient way to find, manage, and share accurate product information. They can now access current specifications, test protocols, BOMs, and manufacturing documentation in a single system.
“We save several hours each week because we know where to find the right information,” says Fagerli.
A single source of truth also helps teams address production bottlenecks. With supporting technical documentation readily available, employees can assess manufacturing issues, coordinate next steps, and work more efficiently with EMS partners.
Nofence has adopted a controlled process for planning, approving, communicating, and implementing engineering changes with Arena.
Engineering teams plan revisions without disrupting the current production record. With each change, the team creates implementation tasks for internal stakeholders and EMS partners. Depending on the change, these tasks can extend from supplier acknowledgment and approval through first-of-line inspection and final implementation verification. Once a change is approved, operations works directly with the EMS partner to determine implementation timing, complete required tasks, and confirm that the updated product meets expectations.
This structured process keeps the supply chain aligned and ensures that every participant understands the change. It also enables Nofence to respond quickly to customer requirements while controlling the risk associated with global product updates.
—Steinar Fagerli, Lead Manufacturing Engineer, Nofence
Centralized product and sourcing information helps Nofence identify and evaluate new suppliers more efficiently. Sourcing teams can access item requirements and route potential suppliers to engineering for qualification. Once a source is approved, the status is shared with EMS partners through Arena, enabling purchasing activities to proceed with authorized information.
Arena strengthens Nofence’s ability to investigate, contain, and resolve issues in the field. “Arena helps us trace affected products to specific versions, batches, and serial numbers. We can quickly contain the issue and implement the necessary changes,” explains Fagerli.
Upon releasing the change, the team coordinates replacements around farmers’ operating schedules to minimize disruption to their work.
Nofence continues to engage with customers and explore new applications for its product. With a scalable product foundation now in place, Nofence can innovate faster, meet growing customer demand, and take precision livestock management to the next level.
—Steinar Fagerli, Lead Manufacturing Engineer, Nofence
