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Whether you’re a one-person operation or a growing business with a full team, we’re here to help. Get in touch and let’s talk about what we can do for you.
Whether you’re a one-person operation or a growing business with a full team, we’re here to help. Get in touch and let’s talk about what we can do for you.
IT that understands there’s a difference between an office PC and the one bolted to a £400,000 machine.
Manufacturing runs two technology estates that have to coexist. There’s the office: ERP, CAD, email, the usual. And there’s the shop floor: machine controllers, sensors, embedded PCs and software that a machine vendor supports and nobody else is allowed to touch. Most IT providers understand the first and are nervous of the second, which is how manufacturers end up with gaps nobody owns. This page is about covering both properly.
Your machines run software you aren’t allowed to update. The PC attached to the CNC, the press or the inspection rig is very likely running an operating system that stopped getting security updates years ago, because that’s what the machine builder certified. Touch it and you risk your support agreement. Leave it and it sits on your network, unpatched, for the working life of the machine. That’s not a mistake, it’s the reality of capital equipment, and it needs managing rather than tutting at.
Your machine vendors have remote access, and nobody is watching it. Almost every manufacturer we visit has remote access tools installed for vendor diagnostics, often left running permanently, frequently with shared credentials, sometimes forgotten entirely after a commissioning visit two years ago. It’s one of the most common ways manufacturers get compromised and one of the easiest to fix.
When something breaks, nobody owns it. Your ERP vendor, your machine supplier, your CAD reseller and your IT provider can each explain why it isn’t theirs. Meanwhile production is stopped and somebody has to coordinate four companies with a phone and a spreadsheet.
And your drawings are the business. Designs, tooling data, process know how. For a lot of engineering firms that’s the entire value of the company sitting in a file vault, and it’s exactly what both ransomware operators and industrial espionage are after.
The gaps in manufacturing IT are never in the middle of anyone’s job. They’re at the boundaries between your suppliers.
Downtime in manufacturing has a known cost per hour and it’s rarely small. A stopped line, idle staff, a missed despatch and a customer with a penalty clause. The causes are often unremarkable: a network issue, an ERP problem, a licence server that didn’t start, a machine PC nobody could log into.
The security exposure is less visible and more serious. A flat network where the office, the shop floor and a vendor’s remote access tool all sit together means one weak point can reach everything, including the systems that run production.
The answer isn’t replacing capital equipment or fighting your machine vendors. It’s segmentation, visibility and ownership. Separate the operational technology from the office network so unpatched machines can do their job safely. Control and monitor vendor access so it’s available when needed and closed when not. And have one provider who deals with all the other suppliers on your behalf.
Machines and controllers that can’t be patched get isolated on their own network, able to talk to what they need and nothing else. You keep the equipment and your vendor support, and you lose most of the risk that comes with it.
Access that’s there when your machine supplier needs it and closed when they don’t, with individual credentials and a record of who connected and when. Rather than a permanently open door with a shared password.
We deal with your ERP provider, your CAD reseller and your machine suppliers on your behalf. One number, no blame shifting, and somebody else holding the phone while production waits.
Two minutes, a handful of questions, covering the boundaries between your office, your shop floor and your suppliers. Most manufacturers find at least one surprise.
Three reasons. Your intellectual property is the business and it needs the strongest protection we offer. Your customers increasingly audit their supply chain, and larger aerospace, automotive and defence buyers often require Cyber Essentials as a contractual condition rather than a preference. And a segmented, well documented environment is far easier to evidence when somebody asks.
Professional includes the certification tools and support, which matters because in this sector the question tends to arrive attached to a purchase order.
For a smaller engineering firm without complex shop floor systems or supply chain audit requirements, Essential covers complete cloud and email security, real Microsoft 365 backup, device security and your Microsoft 365 Business Premium licence.
The network and segmentation work is usually a separate piece regardless of package, because that’s where the specific manufacturing problems sit, and we’d want to walk the floor before saying anything definite about it.
The Professional IT Support Service is for businesses that want the best — complete IT support, the strongest security we offer, and Cyber Essentials tools and certification support all in one package. If you need to protect your reputation, meet compliance requirements, and have confidence your IT is in safe hands, this is it.
Key Features
Every package is unlimited support with no ticket caps and no per-incident charges. Rolling monthly terms are available, longer terms carry a discount, and not-for-profit pricing applies across the range. Current prices are on the package pages.
Machines and controllers isolated from the office and from the internet, so an unpatched embedded PC can’t become the way in.
Named accounts, enabled when needed, closed afterwards, with a log. Not a permanently installed tool with a password three companies know.
Including the machines, the sensors, the inspection kit and anything a contractor plugged in during an install. You cannot protect what nobody has recorded.
CAD data, PDM, revisions and tooling. Tested, because a restore of a design vault is not the same as restoring a folder.
CAD and ERP licensing is a frequent and avoidable cause of lost production mornings.
Your scheduling, stock and despatch live there, and most manufacturers have never tried getting it back.
This is the part that stops most people, and it’s usually smaller than imagined.
What’s running, what’s connected, who has remote access, what’s backed up and where the boundaries are. About an hour, no obligation, findings in writing.
Shop floor isolated from office, vendor access brought under control, multi-factor authentication on the accounts that matter. Usually the highest value work and done around production rather than through it.
You get one number, and we deal with the ERP provider, the machine suppliers and the CAD reseller so your production manager doesn’t have to.
Unlimited support Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, monitoring and patching through the week, and maintenance scheduled around your shift pattern.
Questions manufacturers ask us
Keep them. We isolate those machines on the network so they can reach what they need and nothing else, and so nothing from outside can reach them. It doesn’t affect the equipment, it doesn’t touch your vendor support agreement, and it removes most of the risk those PCs currently carry. This is the single most common job we do in manufacturing.
Yes, and it should be. Individual named access rather than a shared login, enabled when it’s needed and closed when it isn’t, with a record of who connected. Your vendors still get in to do their job, you just know when.
We support everything they run on, including the servers, licence servers, workstations, storage and backups, and we deal with your ERP provider and CAD reseller on your behalf. The vendors still own their software, but you shouldn’t be the one translating between two suppliers with a line stopped.
Not as standard, and we’d rather be straight about it. Our support runs Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, unless you arrange out of hours cover with us separately.
What we do instead is aim at the causes. Patching and maintenance planned around your shifts rather than ours, monitoring so problems surface early, and a practical written procedure for your early shift covering the failures that actually happen. If you still want cover from six, that can be arranged, and we’ll give you an honest view of whether your setup needs it.
Common, and increasingly a contractual requirement rather than a request, particularly in aerospace, automotive and anything touching defence. We’d check what your specific contracts actually require, then get you there. Certification is included in our Professional package, and as an NCSC Assured Service Provider and IASME certified Cyber Advisor we take you through the whole process.
Access controlled so only the people who need them have them, encrypted at rest, backed up with restores actually tested, and monitored for the kind of bulk copying that precedes someone leaving with your designs. Worth doing properly rather than assuming the vault handles it.
Usually fixable. A factory is a difficult radio environment, with metal, machinery and interference, and coverage that worked when it was installed often doesn’t now. It needs a survey rather than another access point stuck on a wall.
We don’t work to fixed SLA response times. Within our working hours we work on priority, so a stopped line is dealt with as a stopped line rather than queued behind something trivial because a contract says four hours.
No. You can take any package on a rolling monthly term. Longer terms carry a discount, and the current rates are on each package page, but that’s your choice, not a condition.
We look after manufacturers and engineering firms across Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Somerset and Swindon, with remote support anywhere in the UK. We’re an NCSC Assured Service Provider, Cyber Essentials Plus certified, and ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 accredited, which is usually what a customer’s supply chain audit is checking for.
Start with an hour walking the floor. You’ll come away knowing which machines are exposed, who can reach your network from outside, and what a bad day would actually cost.
There is nothing more annoying than an IT glitch that stops you working efficiently. However, knowing you have access to immediate attention to the glitch and a solution to it, is very reassuring and that is provided by We Do Your IT. We have so appreciated the availability and response given by the team at We Do Your IT, enabling us to remain a productive firm.
Richard Sharp – Sharp Family Law