IT for Manufacturing
Downtime is measured in dollars per minute. We act like it.
Managed IT for Texas manufacturers — production uptime, OT/IT network separation, supplier security requirements, and 24/7 monitoring.
- When the ERP hiccups, the floor stops — and overtime starts
- Machines on the shop floor run software the vendor stopped patching years ago
- One flat network connects the front office to every controller on the line
- A customer just demanded a cybersecurity attestation before renewing the contract
The compliance picture
Manufacturers increasingly inherit security requirements from customers — supplier security questionnaires, cyber insurance mandates, and for defense-adjacent work, CMMC. The network design and documentation we build answer those requirements before they cost you a contract.
The line comes first
Manufacturing IT is judged by one number: whether the line is running. We design for that — redundancy where an hour of downtime costs real money, maintenance scheduled around production, and monitoring that pages us before the floor notices. Recovery objectives are agreed per system, in writing: the ERP, the shipping station, and the badge printer do not deserve the same promises, and shouldn’t cost the same to protect.
The quiet failure mode matters as much as the loud one. When ERP or MES performance degrades, the floor doesn’t stop — it slows, and the cost hides in overtime and missed ship dates. Monitoring catches the degradation trend before it becomes the Friday crisis.
Old machines, safely
That CNC controller running an ancient OS isn’t getting replaced this year — we know. The answer is separation: shop-floor equipment on its own protected network segment, unable to reach or be reached by email-borne threats in the front office. You keep the machine; the ransomware doesn’t get a path to it.
Segmentation also tames the other quiet risk: machine-vendor remote access. Every equipment vendor wants a tunnel to their controller, and every unmanaged tunnel is a door nobody’s watching. We put vendor access behind controlled, logged connections — vendors keep their service capability, you get a record of who reached the floor and when.
When your customers become your regulators
Manufacturing compliance rarely arrives as law; it arrives as a contract condition. A major customer’s supplier-security questionnaire, a cyber insurance renewal, a prime contractor flowing down CMMC requirements — each one can pause revenue until answered. The controls they ask about (MFA, endpoint detection, segmentation, tested backups, training records) are our managed baseline, and the documentation exists before the questionnaire does.
Watched around the clock
Second shift, third shift, weekend runs — production doesn’t keep office hours and neither does our monitoring. Alerts page an on-call engineer with automated response starting immediately and a human typically engaged within five minutes. The goal is simple: problems get fixed while the floor is still running, not discovered when the morning shift can’t log in.
Manufacturing questions we hear
Can you secure shop-floor machines that can't be updated?
Yes — by separation rather than patching. Legacy controllers and machine PCs go on their own protected network segment, unable to reach or be reached by the office network where email-borne threats land. You keep the machine; ransomware doesn't get a path to it.
A customer wants a cybersecurity attestation. What do we do?
Most supplier questionnaires ask for the same baseline: MFA, endpoint protection, segmented networks, tested backups, training records. Those are part of our managed service, documented in a form you can return — and for defense-adjacent work we'll tell you honestly what CMMC alignment would take.
How do you handle ERP downtime?
ERP gets the strictest treatment in the environment: redundancy where an hour costs real money, changes only in maintenance windows you approve, monitoring that pages us before the floor notices, and recovery objectives agreed in writing per system.
Do you support both IT and the plant network?
We manage the IT side and the network architecture that separates and connects the two — segmentation, firewalls, secure remote access for machine vendors. Your equipment vendors keep their controllers; we make sure their remote access is no longer a hole in the fence.
Get an IT assessment built for manufacturing.
A local engineer reviews your environment against the stakes of your industry — compliance, uptime, and the systems your revenue runs through. Confidential, and yours to keep.