Managed IT for Manufacturers Who Depend on Uptime

Your production floor does not stop because someone in accounting cannot print. It stops because the ERP server crashed, a ransomware attack locked your SCADA system, or a misconfigured firewall broke the connection between your MES and the machines running your second shift. When that happens, every minute of downtime costs real money — in scrapped material, missed shipments, contractual penalties, and overtime labor to recover.

Most managed service providers build their operations around office environments: desktops, email, and cloud apps. They do not understand ERP integrations, IT/OT network segmentation, or why a ten-minute network outage at 2:00 AM matters just as much as one at 2:00 PM. Manufacturing IT is a different discipline, and it demands a provider built for it.

Neuron has supported manufacturers nationwide since 2001. We provide flat-rate managed IT services to aerospace, food and beverage, plastics, metal fabrication, and automotive parts manufacturers — companies where 99.95% uptime is not a marketing claim but an operational requirement. Our engineers work on production floors, not just in server rooms, and they understand the technology stack that keeps your operation running.

What Makes Manufacturing IT Different

The gap between office IT and manufacturing IT is not a matter of scale. It is a matter of kind. Your environment has constraints and requirements that general-purpose MSPs rarely encounter, and the consequences of getting it wrong are measured in lost production, not lost convenience.

ERP, MES, and SCADA Systems

Your enterprise resource planning system is the backbone of your operation. It tracks orders, schedules production, manages inventory, and feeds data to your accounting, purchasing, and quality departments. When your ERP goes down, your entire workflow stalls. The same is true for your manufacturing execution system and any SCADA infrastructure controlling process equipment.

Supporting these systems requires more than basic server administration. It requires understanding how production data flows between the shop floor and the front office, how database performance affects transaction speed during peak scheduling periods, and how to plan upgrades without shutting down a production line. Neuron engineers have direct experience supporting major ERP platforms — Epicor, SAP Business One, IQMS (DELMIAworks), JobBOSS, and others — in live manufacturing environments.

IT/OT Convergence

The line between information technology and operational technology has been disappearing for years. Your CNC machines, PLCs, injection molding controllers, and process sensors increasingly communicate over the same Ethernet networks as your business applications. This convergence creates performance and security challenges that generic IT providers are not equipped to handle.

A misconfigured VLAN can flood your production network with broadcast traffic and freeze a machine mid-cycle. An unpatched Windows workstation on the corporate network can become the entry point for malware that spreads to your OT systems. Proper IT/OT segmentation — with firewalls, managed switches, and monitoring at the boundary — is not optional. It is a production reliability requirement.

Compliance Requirements

Manufacturers face a regulatory landscape that most industries never encounter. CMMC and NIST 800-171 for defense contractors. FDA 21 CFR Part 11 for food and pharmaceutical producers. ITAR for companies handling defense-related technical data. IATF 16949 for automotive suppliers. Each framework imposes specific technical controls on how data is stored, accessed, logged, and protected.

Meeting these requirements is not a one-time project. It demands continuous monitoring, documentation, and adjustment as both the regulations and your environment evolve. Your IT provider must understand these frameworks deeply enough to implement controls that satisfy auditors without crippling your daily operations.

Multi-Shift and 24/7 Operations

Many manufacturers run two or three shifts, and some operate around the clock. An IT provider that closes its help desk at 5:00 PM is not compatible with a production schedule that runs until midnight or beyond. System maintenance windows shrink dramatically when every hour of every day is a production hour.

Neuron provides after-hours support coverage and schedules maintenance during planned downtime windows — not when it is convenient for us, but when your production schedule allows it. Proactive monitoring runs continuously, alerting our team to disk failures, network anomalies, and performance degradation before they reach the production floor.

Harsh Physical Environments

Server rooms and wiring closets in manufacturing facilities contend with dust, metal particulate, temperature swings, vibration, and moisture. Standard office-grade hardware and consumer-grade wireless access points fail prematurely in these conditions. Network cabinets near washdown areas in food plants, welding cells in fabrication shops, or injection molding machines generating ambient heat all require hardware specified for the environment.

We select and deploy ruggedized switches, industrial-rated wireless access points, sealed enclosures, and filtered cooling systems based on the actual conditions in your facility. This is not an afterthought — it is part of every infrastructure project we scope.

Manufacturing Sectors We Serve

Aerospace and Defense

The United States is home to major clusters of aerospace and defense manufacturers, from Southern California to the Pacific Northwest to the Eastern Seaboard. Precision machining shops, electronics assembly houses, composite fabricators, and systems integrators all operate under overlapping layers of compliance and security requirements that their IT infrastructure must enforce.

If you hold DoD contracts involving Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), CMMC certification is no longer optional. The path to certification runs through NIST 800-171, which specifies 110 security requirements covering access control, audit logging, incident response, and system integrity. Neuron assesses your current security posture, identifies gaps in your System Security Plan (SSP), develops your Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M), and implements the technical controls required for certification. We have guided multiple aerospace manufacturers through this process.

ITAR adds another layer. Defense-related technical data must be restricted to U.S. persons, which means your IT systems need access controls, data classification, and audit trails that enforce this restriction at every level — from Active Directory permissions to encrypted file storage to email filtering. Your CAD/CAM workstations running CATIA, NX, or SolidWorks handle controlled data daily, and the network infrastructure connecting them must be segmented and monitored accordingly. We build and manage classified and controlled network segments that satisfy both ITAR and CMMC requirements without creating barriers for your engineering team.

Food and Beverage

Food and beverage plants present a collision of regulatory pressure and harsh operating conditions. FDA 21 CFR Part 11 mandates that electronic records and electronic signatures meet specific requirements for authenticity, integrity, and confidentiality. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requires traceability and documentation capabilities that depend on reliable IT infrastructure. SQF and GFSI audits increasingly scrutinize data integrity and technology controls.

On the plant floor, your IT equipment faces washdown procedures, sanitation chemicals, temperature extremes, and humidity levels that destroy standard hardware in months. Production areas need ruggedized enclosures, industrial wireless access points rated for wet environments, and network cabling routed to avoid contamination risks. Every hardware specification must account for these conditions.

Neuron designs and deploys infrastructure for food and beverage plants that meets both regulatory and environmental requirements. We segment plant floor networks from corporate systems, configure access controls that satisfy Part 11, and maintain documentation that auditors expect to see. Our proactive monitoring catches hardware degradation from environmental stress before it causes an unplanned line stoppage.

Plastics and Rubber

Modern injection molding machines, extruders, and thermoforming equipment are networked devices. They receive program downloads over Ethernet, transmit cycle data to monitoring systems, and feed production metrics to your ERP. When the network connecting your machines to your production management system drops, your operators are running blind — and your scheduling, inventory, and quality data stops flowing.

ERP platforms like IQMS (DELMIAworks) or Epicor are central to plastics manufacturing operations, handling everything from material planning and mold scheduling to real-time production tracking. Keeping these systems performant and available requires database optimization, reliable server infrastructure, and IT support from engineers who understand how production data moves through the system.

Energy monitoring adds another network dependency. Plastics manufacturing is energy-intensive, and IoT sensors tracking power consumption, hydraulic pressure, and barrel temperatures generate continuous data streams that rely on stable network infrastructure and cloud platforms for storage and analysis. Neuron designs network architectures that support machine connectivity and energy monitoring while isolating production traffic from corporate IT systems through proper segmentation.

Metal Fabrication

Metal fabrication shops — CNC machining, sheet metal forming, welding, and finishing operations — depend on technology for everything from machine programming to quoting and job costing. The technology footprint may be smaller than a large aerospace plant, but the consequences of downtime are just as immediate. When your CNC machines cannot pull programs or your ERP is offline, jobs stop moving.

CNC program management is a core IT function in fabrication shops. Distributing programs to machines, maintaining version control, and backing up post-processed files requires reliable file server or cloud storage infrastructure. Losing a program library to a disk failure or ransomware attack can halt production for days. Our backup and disaster recovery services protect these critical assets with tested, recoverable backups.

CAD/CAM workstations running SolidWorks, Mastercam, Fusion 360, or similar applications demand high-performance hardware, graphics acceleration, and fast network access to large file sets stored on central servers. We spec, deploy, and support engineering workstations configured for these applications. Many fabrication shops also hold defense subcontracts requiring CMMC or NIST 800-171 compliance — adding security and documentation requirements that Neuron manages alongside day-to-day IT support.

Automotive Parts

Automotive parts manufacturers operate under relentless pressure from OEMs and tier-one suppliers. Quality requirements governed by IATF 16949 are strict, production volumes are high, delivery schedules are exact, and the cost of a line-down event at your customer's plant can be catastrophic.

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the communication backbone of the automotive supply chain. Purchase orders, shipping notices, invoices, and quality data flow electronically between your systems and your customers' systems. EDI failures or delays create cascading problems — missed shipments, chargebacks, and damaged supplier scorecards. Maintaining reliable connectivity, redundant internet circuits, and properly configured EDI infrastructure is essential.

Your production floor runs SPC (Statistical Process Control) data collection, machine monitoring, and OEE tracking that depend on plant floor network connectivity. Multi-shift operations — often two or three shifts, five to seven days a week — mean your IT infrastructure has almost no downtime tolerance and very narrow maintenance windows. Neuron provides proactive monitoring, after-hours support, and maintenance scheduling aligned with your production calendar to maintain the 99.95% uptime your operation demands.

Core IT Services for Manufacturers

Managed IT Support

Flat-rate managed IT support built for manufacturing environments. Your team gets a help desk that understands ERP, CAD/CAM, and plant floor systems — not just desktops and printers. We provide proactive monitoring, patch management, and on-site support from engineers who know your facility and your technology stack.

Cybersecurity

Manufacturing is now one of the most targeted industries for ransomware and cyberattacks. We implement layered security — endpoint protection, network segmentation, email filtering, vulnerability scanning, and security awareness training — designed for environments where IT and OT converge. Our security posture management meets the requirements of CMMC, NIST 800-171, and other manufacturing compliance frameworks.

Cloud and Infrastructure

Not every workload belongs in the cloud, and not every workload should stay on-premises. We design hybrid infrastructure strategies for manufacturers that keep latency-sensitive applications close to the production floor while moving appropriate workloads to Azure, AWS, or Microsoft 365. Every migration is planned around your production schedule to eliminate disruption.

Backup and Disaster Recovery

Your ERP database, CNC program library, quality records, and compliance documentation must be protected by tested, recoverable backups. We implement backup strategies with defined recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives, and we test restores regularly — because a backup that has never been tested is not a backup.

Network Support

Manufacturing networks are not office networks. They carry production data between machines, ERP servers, quality systems, and monitoring platforms — often in harsh environments. We design, deploy, and manage wired and wireless networks with proper IT/OT segmentation, industrial-grade hardware, and performance monitoring built for production reliability.

IT Strategy and Consulting

Technology decisions in manufacturing have long time horizons and high stakes. An ERP migration, a new plant buildout, or a compliance initiative requires planning that accounts for production impact, phased implementation, and process maturity. Our virtual CIO services provide strategic guidance grounded in 25 years of manufacturing IT experience.

Compliance Expertise

Regulatory compliance in manufacturing is not a checkbox exercise. Each framework imposes specific technical controls, documentation requirements, and ongoing obligations that your IT environment must satisfy. Neuron has direct implementation experience with the frameworks that govern manufacturers nationwide.

CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification): Required for DoD contractors handling CUI, CMMC mandates cybersecurity practices at defined maturity levels verified by third-party assessment. We implement the technical controls, develop the documentation, and prepare your environment for assessment — drawing on our experience with multiple successful certification efforts.

NIST 800-171: The technical foundation underlying CMMC, NIST 800-171 specifies 110 security requirements for protecting CUI. We assess your current state against every control, build your System Security Plan, and close gaps through targeted technical implementation.

ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations): ITAR restricts access to defense-related technical data to U.S. persons and imposes strict data handling requirements. We configure access controls, encrypted storage, audit logging, and network segmentation to enforce ITAR compliance across your IT infrastructure.

FDA 21 CFR Part 11: This regulation governs electronic records and electronic signatures in FDA-regulated industries. We configure system access controls, audit trails, and data integrity measures that satisfy Part 11 requirements for food, beverage, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

IATF 16949: The automotive quality management standard includes provisions for document control, data integrity, and traceability that depend on well-managed IT infrastructure. We ensure your systems support the technology-related requirements of IATF 16949 certification and ongoing compliance.

Results That Speak for Themselves

"Neuron transformed our IT from a constant headache into a competitive advantage. We went from weekly outages to over a year without a single unplanned downtime event." — Director of Operations, Aerospace Parts Manufacturer

"Their understanding of manufacturing IT — from our ERP to our plant floor network — sets them apart from every MSP we evaluated." — Plant Manager, Plastics Manufacturer

These results are not accidental. They come from a deliberate focus on process maturity, proactive monitoring, and deep specialization in manufacturing environments. When your IT provider understands your industry, the difference shows up in uptime numbers, audit outcomes, and the number of production interruptions caused by technology failures.

Ready to Stabilize Your Manufacturing IT?

If your current IT provider does not understand the difference between your OT network and your guest Wi-Fi, it is time for a conversation. Neuron provides flat-rate managed IT services built specifically for manufacturers nationwide — with the compliance expertise, production floor experience, and proactive monitoring that your operation requires.