INDUSTRIESI11Manufacturing & Distribution
When the line stops,
everything stops.
IT for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors. The plant and the warehouse have requirements an office network was never designed for, and treating them as one thing is how an afternoon of production disappears.
WHAT WE HEAR
The four sentences we hear most in your sector.
- 01
The machine PC runs Windows 7 and cannot be replaced.
Because the equipment vendor certified that version and nothing since. Common, unavoidable, and entirely manageable with segmentation rather than replacement.
- 02
Scanners drop out at the back of the warehouse.
Racking, steel, and cold storage all defeat Wi-Fi designed on a floor plan rather than surveyed in the actual building.
- 03
Stock in the ERP and stock on the shelf disagree.
Which is a process problem the technology can expose and support, but cannot fix on its own, and we will say so.
- 04
Our office IT provider will not touch the plant.
Fair enough, because operational technology has different rules. But somebody has to own the boundary between the two, and usually nobody does.
THE STACK
The systems you actually run.
Not a list of logos. These are the platforms we support, migrate, and get called about in this sector. If yours is missing, it usually means we have not worked with it, and we will say so rather than nod along.
ERP and operations
The system of record for stock, purchasing, production, and fulfilment. Everything else is judged by whether it keeps this running.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
- MYOB Acumatica
- Infor
- SAP Business One
- Cin7
- Unleashed
- Xero
Warehouse and fulfilment
Depends completely on wireless coverage in a building that is actively hostile to wireless.
- Warehouse management systems
- Zebra and Honeywell scanners
- Barcode and label printing
- Pick and pack workflows
- Freight and courier integrations
Plant and operational technology
Different lifecycle, different risk profile, and it must not sit on the same network as the office.
- Machine control PCs
- PLCs and HMIs
- SCADA systems
- Industrial networking
- Legacy operating systems
Quality, traceability, and compliance
In food and export manufacturing these records are audited, so retention and retrievability are not optional.
- Batch and lot traceability
- Quality management systems
- MPI and export documentation
- Label compliance
- Temperature monitoring
WHERE WE HELP
Four things we do for manufacturing & distribution specifically.
- 01
Separating the plant from the office
Operational technology on its own network segment, reaching only what it needs. That is how a machine PC running an unsupported operating system stays safely in production instead of being either a risk or an expensive replacement project.
- 02
Wireless designed for the building you have
A survey of the actual warehouse, with racking loaded, cold stores closed, and the doors where they really are, rather than a design drawn on a floor plan. Scanner dropouts are almost always a coverage design problem.
- 03
ERP that stays up and stays current
Support for the system your business runs on, including the integrations to freight, ecommerce, and finance that break quietly and are noticed at dispatch. Plus a real plan for what dispatch does when it is unavailable.
- 04
Continuity measured in production
Recovery objectives set against what an hour of stopped production or unfulfilled dispatch actually costs, rather than against a generic target, and tested so the number is measured rather than hoped for.
WHAT IT COSTS
Per user, per month, plus per site infrastructure
Priced per user per month for office and administrative staff, with plant and warehouse infrastructure quoted per site because a single production line and a three-warehouse distribution operation are not comparable. Network surveys, ERP work, and segmentation projects are quoted separately so they sit in a capital budget.
WHERE TO START
The services that matter most here.
FAQ
Questions from your sector
01Our machine PCs run old, unsupported Windows. What can we do?
Segment them rather than replace them. Equipment vendors certify a specific operating system and often never certify anything newer, so the machine is not the problem, its network position is. Put those systems on their own segment that reaches only what they need, remove internet access, and control who can connect. That is far cheaper than replacing working production equipment and it removes most of the actual risk.
02Why do our barcode scanners keep dropping out in the warehouse?
Almost always wireless coverage rather than the scanners. Warehouses are hostile to Wi-Fi: steel racking reflects signal, stock absorbs it, coverage changes as the racking fills and empties, and cold stores are effectively metal boxes. A design drawn on a floor plan will not survive contact with a loaded warehouse. The fix is a survey in the real building under real conditions and access points placed for the aisles rather than for the ceiling grid.
03What is the difference between IT and OT, and why does it matter?
Information technology is your office systems: laptops, email, the ERP. Operational technology is what runs the plant: machine controllers, HMIs, SCADA. They have opposite priorities. IT patches quickly and tolerates a restart. OT cannot be restarted during production and often cannot be patched at all. Managing them under the same rules means either the plant gets broken or the office gets neglected, so the right answer is a clear boundary with somebody owning it.
04Should we move our ERP to the cloud?
Often yes, though it is worth doing the arithmetic rather than assuming. Cloud ERP removes the server and the upgrade projects and makes remote access straightforward. The trade-off is that your internet connection becomes production-critical, so failover stops being optional, and any integration with plant equipment on site needs designing rather than assuming. We model the running cost before you commit, because that is the number most migrations discover afterwards.
05What does an hour of downtime cost us?
That is the question worth answering before anything else, and most operations have never calculated it. Take your production or dispatch value per hour, add the labour standing idle, add any late delivery penalties, and add the recovery time to catch up. Once that number exists, decisions about redundancy and recovery targets stop being arguments about cost and become straightforward arithmetic.
06Can you work alongside our equipment vendors?
Yes, and on the plant side we generally should. Your equipment vendor owns the machine and its software, and we own the network it sits on and the boundary to the rest of the business. Written responsibilities at that seam prevent the situation where a fault sits between two suppliers who each believe it belongs to the other.
Start at the boundary.
Where the plant meets the office is where most of the risk and most of the arguments live. We will map it and tell you what we would change.
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