Manufacturing IT Services

Common Manufacturer IT Challenges

Industrial companies face a unique set of IT challenges that, if left unaddressed, can erode the speed, precision, and accuracy modern manufacturing depends on. These challenges include:

• Costly downtime: In manufacturing, the heart of the business is how much—and how efficiently—you can build products. That’s why downtime can hurt. In fact, it can bleed your company as much as $260,000 per hour. With so many systems working in sync, even a brief disruption can ripple through operations, causing production delays, missed deadlines, and mounting labor and material costs. 

For example, if a network issue disconnects your MES (Manufacturing Execution System) from the shop floor, your team loses real-time visibility. Without that data, quality checks falter, defective products slip through, and more time is spent fixing or redoing work.

• Outdated systems: Nearly 74% of manufacturers still rely on legacy systems or spreadsheets to manage operations. This reliance hinders progress, as aging or unintegrated hardware and software often lack real-time visibility, create data silos, and require manual workarounds that slow down critical workflows.

For example, legacy ERP systems that can’t sync inventory and production data in real time often lead to mismatched stock levels, scheduling delays, and fulfillment errors—all of which ultimately impact delivery timelines and customer satisfaction.

• Cybersecurity threats: Manufacturing companies are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats, particularly ransomware attacks targeting industrial control systems. With IoT devices, cloud platforms, and operational technologies all interconnected, the modern factory floor presents a wide—and often under-secured—attack surface.

Given the industry’s extreme sensitivity to downtime, the consequences of a cyberattack are especially severe. In fact, the average cost of a data breach in the industrial sector has reached nearly $4.47 million.

Attackers often exploit supply chain vulnerabilities, using third-party vendors or partners as a backdoor into your network. Intellectual property theft is another growing concern, with cybercriminals targeting proprietary designs, formulas, and trade secrets for financial or competitive gain.

• Lack of secure remote access: As manufacturing operations become increasingly digitized and data-driven, plant managers, IT staff, and key stakeholders need end-to-end access to critical systems—from anywhere. Yet manufacturers operating on legacy infrastructure often lack secure, reliable remote access capabilities.

Without full system visibility and secure remote connectivity, it becomes difficult to troubleshoot issues off-site or perform routine tasks like reviewing performance metrics and responding to alerts, unless someone is physically on-site. For example, if a machine error or system alert occurs after hours and the IT team lacks remote access, the issue can’t be addressed until the next shift arrives.

This slows down decision-making, causes production delays, and overall limits the agility needed to keep pace with today’s fast-moving industrial environments.

• Compliance pressures: Manufacturers in highly regulated sectors, such as aerospace, food production, defense, and medical devices, must comply with industry-specific frameworks that govern how data is handled, stored, and protected. These may include ISO standards (like ISO 9001 or 13485), FDA 21 CFR Part 11 for medical device compliance, and ITAR for defense and aerospace applications.

These regulations require manufacturers to maintain audit trails, enforce access controls, and uphold system integrity throughout the production process.

Without the proper IT infrastructure and documentation practices in place, even small oversights, such as a missed software patch or an untracked access event, can result in failed audits, legal penalties, and reputational damage.

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