IT and networks for manufacturing and industrial businesses

In a manufacturing business, IT does not stop at the office door. It carries on into the hall, the store, the machine — and different rules apply there: dust, metal, vibration, roller doors that change the radio picture every time they open. And a machine meant to run for ten years does not get replaced because an operating system has aged.

What is different in manufacturing

• Machines outlive operating systems. A controller on an old Windows version is the normal state, not negligence — it belongs segregated, not replaced.
• The hall is hostile to radio: metal racking, cranes, forklift traffic, roller doors. A radio picture that is right in the morning can look different at midday.
• Scanners and terminals have to work on the move. A handheld scanner that drops the connection while walking through the store makes the stocktake useless.
• Standstill costs by the minute, not by the day. What counts here is not whether something fails but how quickly it runs again.
• Production and office have different availability requirements — and should therefore not share one network and one line.

What we take on in a manufacturing business

• Network into the hall: structured cabling, switches, access points, surveyed radio coverage
• Separate networks for production, office and guests — machine controllers shielded from the rest
• Scanners, terminals and mobile devices in the store: setup, coverage, roaming without drops
• Servers and workstations: monitoring, updates outside the shift, backups with a tested restore
• Monitoring of disk space, load and drives — the failure becomes visible before it happens
• A written procedure for the emergency: who does what, in which order, with which credentials

Machines, controllers and the boundary of support

We do not operate machine controllers and manufacturing software — they belong to the vendor and its service contract. We take on the network underneath, the segregation, the access for the machine vendor and backups of what is stored locally. Remote access for the machine supplier in particular is rarely governed: they should reach their machine — and nothing else. That can be set up cleanly.

Where it gets expensive in manufacturing

A flat network. Office, production, machines and guests sit in the same segment because that is how it once started. As a result every device reaches every other — including the controller that no longer gets updates, and the supplier's remote access. Retrofitting the separation is work, but it rarely needs new hardware: in most businesses the existing switches can already do it, it was simply never configured.

What it costs

Surveying, planning and setting up network and Wi-Fi for hall and store starts at €890, firewall and separate networks at €690. A managed server costs from €89 per month, monitored backups from €49 per month, ongoing support from €29 per workstation and month. Ad-hoc help is billed at €95 per hour, on-site work at €120 per hour plus travel. Guide prices, net plus VAT.

Guide prices, net plus VAT. As of: September 2026 · All prices at a glance

Frequently asked questions