Managed IT Services for Manufacturing

What Managed IT Services for Manufacturing Include

The agreement covers 8 service lines. The table lists what we run on each one and where a plant changes the job compared with an office.

OT, short for operational technology, is the equipment that runs production itself, such as PLCs, HMIs, SCADA servers, and machine controllers. IT is everything else, from email and laptops to the ERP. Each side breaks differently. Running plant IT well comes down to managing the line between them, and keeping a current inventory of every device on each side of it.

Support That Follows the Shift Schedule

A week has 168 hours. An 8-to-5 weekday help desk covers 45 of them. That’s about 27%.

Run 2 shifts of 8 hours, 5 days a week, and the plant is producing for 80 hours. A third shift makes 120. A plant that runs around the clock uses all 168, and the night crew’s problems don’t wait for morning.

That arithmetic picks the plan. Fully Managed IT includes 24/7 support availability and after-hours response to monitoring alerts, while IT Essentials, our $91 tier, is limited business-hours support capped at 8 hours per user per month, which suits day-shift office users and not a night crew.

Changes follow the plant calendar too. Office systems take patches on a normal cycle. Anything on the production side waits for a window your plant manager signs off on, and when a controller is involved, so is the machine builder.

Monitoring has to know the schedule as well. A 2 AM login from a second-shift supervisor is routine on a plant network. Our 24/7 SOC, part of our cybersecurity services, is tuned to that pattern instead of an office day, so a login that really is out of place still stands out.

OT/IT Segmentation Without Stopping the Line

Manufacturing has been the most-targeted industry in IBM’s X-Force reports for 5 years running. In the 2026 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, it accounted for 27.7% of the incidents X-Force observed.

So what does a plant actually do about it? In May 2025, CISA published 5 primary mitigations for operational technology. Each one maps to a line in a plant IT agreement.

• Remove OT connections to the public internet. Our OT asset inventory shows which controllers and HMIs can be reached from outside, and those paths get closed or moved behind the firewall.
• Change default passwords. The same inventory flags devices still on factory credentials. Some of them belong to the integrator, so the change gets scheduled with whoever supports the machine.
• Secure remote access. Machine builders connect through brokered, logged sessions with MFA rather than an always-on remote tool sitting on the HMI.
• Segment IT and OT networks. Production traffic gets its own network. Every crossing to the office side is controlled and monitored.
• Practice manual operations. The plant owns that procedure. Our part is proving, with scheduled restore tests, that the systems you need to restart production actually come back.

The deeper reading sits in 3 companion guides. Manufacturing cybersecurity in Texas walks through the common breach paths and a 90-day hardening plan. What Texas manufacturers get wrong about OT/IT security covers the 7 assumptions we keep finding on plant floors. And the guide to the OT cybersecurity audit for Texas manufacturers explains what reviewers check first.

ERP, MES, and CAD Support Below the Application

We support SAP, Epicor, NetSuite, Sage 500, and Fishbowl Inventory on the ERP side, plus Autodesk AutoCAD, Inventor, and Vault for engineering.

Support covers the stack under each application. Server and database health, the license server, backups, user access, patch timing, and the network path between the ERP and the floor terminals that read from it all sit with us. When the fault is in the software itself, we open the vendor ticket and stay on it until it closes.

CAD is the quiet risk. Vault and Inventor files are big, locked while someone has them open, and shared across the shop network, so a slow link shows up as an engineer staring at a progress bar while a job waits on a drawing. It adds up.

Weighing a move to a cloud ERP? Read ERP cloud migration for Texas manufacturers before you sign the vendor’s proposal. It starts from the modules a company actually uses.

CMMC, ITAR, and Customer Security Requirements

For most plants, the security requirement shows up through a customer, not a regulator. A prime adds a DFARS clause. An automotive buyer sends a questionnaire. The cyber insurer asks for proof of MFA before it renews.

Where CMMC stands in October 2026

On July 13, 2026, the Department of War suspended CMMC Phase II, the step that would have required third-party assessments. Its CMMC program page says all Phase I self-assessment requirements remain firmly in place.

The contract clause underneath didn’t move either. DFARS 252.204-7012 still applies the NIST SP 800-171 controls to any contractor system that handles covered defense information, and it still requires cyber incidents to be reported within 72 hours of discovery.

That paperwork is what MFG Secure covers for defense suppliers, along with keeping ITAR and EAR technical data off the general engineering shares. For the full readiness process, see our CMMC compliance services in Texas.

ITAR registration doesn’t wait for an export

Export rules catch more plants than people expect. Under 22 CFR 122.1, a manufacturer of defense articles has to register with the State Department even if it never exports anything, and from that point, who on your IT provider’s team can reach the technical data becomes a compliance question.

Texas SB 2610 rewards a documented program

Texas added an incentive of its own. Senate Bill 2610, in effect since September 1, 2025, blocks exemplary damages in a breach lawsuit against a Texas business with fewer than 250 employees that holds sensitive personal information, as long as it was running a qualifying cybersecurity program when the breach happened.

The bar rises with headcount. Under 20 employees, the law asks for simplified controls like password policies and staff training. From 20 to 99, it points to CIS Controls Implementation Group 1. From 100 to 249, the program has to conform to a recognized framework such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework or NIST SP 800-171, the same control set a defense supplier already owes its prime.

Customer questionnaires usually ask about the IT provider too. Our SOC 2 Type 1 report (2023) answers that section for buyers who accept a Type 1. It was issued in May 2023 and hasn’t been renewed, and we say so up front.

Downtime, Response Times, and What Goes in the Agreement

Response numbers come in 2 kinds. Guarantees and averages.

Ours is an average. Across every ticket priority, our first response averages 5 minutes, and we publish it as a measured average rather than a promise written into the contract. Know which kind you’re buying before anyone signs.

The agreement still has to say what happens when a line goes down. These are the lines we write in.

Recovery targets get set system by system. Our page on disaster recovery in Texas explains how each system gets its own recovery time and data-loss target, priced by tier and agreed in writing before anything breaks.

What Managed IT for Manufacturing Costs at Uprite

Our rates are published on the Uprite pricing page. Every plan below is billed per user per month.

Plans can be mixed across a team. The pricing page’s own example puts an executive team on Fully Managed IT while operations staff sit on IT Essentials. Plants do the same with floor users. Watch the hours, though. Essentials won’t cover a night shift.

Licensing sits on top. Microsoft 365 and other software subscriptions are billed beyond the plan rate, and our breakdown of manufacturing IT cost in Texas prices those lines, plus OT and compliance scope, for real plant sizes.

Every plan carries a first-year rate guarantee and a 120-day satisfaction promise. If you’re not satisfied within 120 days, you can get out of the contract. No hidden fees, either.

The Uprite MFG Suite

Uprite MFG℠ is our manufacturing program. It comes in 4 forms, so a 40-person machine shop with no IT staff and a manufacturer with a 3-person IT department can both use it.

Each option includes regular risk reviews, incident response planning, and documentation built for audits and customer compliance demands. Still comparing providers? Work through the managed IT factors for Texas manufacturers first, or see how 19 providers scored in our ranking of the best MSPs for manufacturing.

Already have an IT person? MFG Impact℠ is the co-managed version. Your IT lead keeps ownership of the plant’s priorities, and we add the SOC, patching, after-hours cover, and the compliance paperwork.

Manufacturing IT Where Your Plants Are

Every Uprite office is in Texas, and Texas plants are the only ones we support. Each metro has its own page with local detail. Pick yours below.

What This Looks Like at a Growing Manufacturer

A growing manufacturer came to us with email outages from a failing on-site Exchange server, hardware near end of life, slow support from its previous provider, and cyber insurance requirements it was struggling to meet.

We replaced break-fix with managed IT and 24/7 support, moved email to Office 365, upgraded the servers and workstations, added VoIP and backup, and closed the security gaps behind the insurance requirements. The work was sequenced so production kept running.

The result was fewer outages, faster response, and an environment ready for the next stage of growth. The full write-up is our manufacturing IT modernization case study.

“We built our Uprite MFG suite because production cannot afford surprises. If a line goes down or systems fail, the entire operation feels it. Technology must work as reliably as the equipment on your floor.”

Stephen Sweeney, CEO, Uprite Services

Who It Fits

Plants Uprite MFG Is Built For

Do 2 or more of those sound like your plant? The free assessment shows what the scope would look like.