A plant does not stop because a spreadsheet is slow. It stops because a cell lost its network path, because the ERP could not reach the floor, or because a machine running an operating system nobody supports finally refused to boot. The Manufacturing IT Assessment is a free review aimed at that seam between the office network and the production floor, run by NetFusion Designs from 141 Main Street N, Markham.
You end up with a written, risk-ranked account of where your plant network, your ERP integration, your shop-floor devices and your recovery position genuinely stand. There is no charge and no obligation, and the document is yours to take anywhere you like.
Office-only reviews stop at the server room door. This one crosses it, because in manufacturing the expensive failures live on the other side, in equipment commissioned by a machine vendor and not looked at since.
| Area | What we examine | Why it matters on a production floor |
|---|---|---|
| Plant and OT network | Separation between office and production networks, the age and manageability of plant switches, what a controller can actually reach, and whether a machine vendor's remote tool has a route into everything else. | A flat network means a phishing click in accounts payable has a path to a cell controller. |
| ERP and line-of-business integration | How ERP, MRP and scheduling systems exchange data with the floor, where the integrations physically run, who holds the credentials, and what happens when that server reboots. | Broken integrations surface as wrong parts and missed ship dates, not as an IT ticket. |
| Shop-floor devices | Ruggedized terminals, scanners, label printers, human-machine interfaces, and machines running operating systems their vendor no longer supports. | These are rarely patched, rarely inventoried, and often contractually off-limits to change. |
| Identity and access | Shared station logins, contractor and integrator accounts, multi-factor coverage, and what a departing shift supervisor keeps access to. | Shared accounts make an incident impossible to trace back to a person. |
| Backup and recovery | What is backed up, whether a restore has ever been tested, where machine programs and recipe files live, and how a rebuild would actually proceed. | Lost production time, rather than lost data, is what ends up being argued over afterwards. |
| Vendor remote access | How integrators and off-site engineers connect, whether those sessions are monitored, and whether access ends when the project does. | Vendor remote access is a standing door into production that nobody owns. |
We have built high-availability infrastructure for a manufacturer before. See how it went at Tube-Mac Industries, where JobSight and Sage 300 sit at the centre of the business, or read how we support plants generally on our manufacturing IT services page.
You get findings ranked by risk, written so that a plant manager and a controller can both read them without an interpreter. Each one is a short entry: what we found, what it puts at risk in production terms, what to do about it, and how soon it should be done.
Ranking is done on consequence to output rather than on how interesting the weakness is. A dull backup gap that would cost you a shift outranks an exotic vulnerability that would cost you nothing at all.
We do not price anything in the report and we do not attach a proposal to it. Where a finding is something your current arrangement can handle, the report says so plainly.
Four steps, agreed in advance, with nothing touched on the production side without your explicit approval.
We talk through what you make, how many sites and shifts you run, which systems the plant cannot operate without, and what has failed recently. We agree there and then what is in scope, and which equipment is not to be touched at all.
We review what you have agreed to show us: network separation, the ERP and its integrations, device and identity configuration, backup coverage, and how outside parties connect. Read-only wherever possible, and anything else is asked for first.
We write up what we found and rank it by consequence to production. The document is yours regardless of what happens next, and you may pass it to anyone you choose.
We take you through it, distinguish the urgent from the merely untidy, and say which items your existing team or provider can close without us being involved at all.
This is a review. It is worth being blunt about where it stops.
The assessment is aimed at a specific situation. It is worth checking yours against it before booking a call.
Not without permission, and usually not at all. Most of what matters can be established from the network side and from conversation. Anything that would involve interacting with equipment is raised with you first, and you can decline it and still receive the report.
Yes. Scheduling around production is normal for us. Tell us on the discovery call when the plant is quiet and we work to that, rather than expecting the plant to work to us.
Very much so. Vendor restrictions are extremely common and we do not pretend otherwise. The value is in knowing exactly which equipment is frozen, so protection can be built around it rather than argued about with the vendor.
It is free, and the catch is that we hope you like the work. Some businesses engage us afterwards and some hand the report to the provider they already have. Both outcomes are fine, and neither is a condition of receiving it.
Someone who understands the plant, usually a maintenance or operations lead, and someone who holds the IT or ERP relationship. An hour of each of their time on the discovery call is normally enough.
Leave your details and we will arrange the discovery call around your production schedule. Our helpdesk and Security Operations Centre are staffed twenty-four hours a day, we target one hour on critical issues, and 95% of tickets are resolved same day. You can also call 647-476-5259.
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