Client PortalManaged IT for manufacturers
IT Support for Manufacturers in Melbourne's South East
A manufacturing business runs two technology estates that were never designed to meet. One is the office: email, accounts, the ERP, the people at desks. The other is the floor: machine controllers, a PC bolted to a cell because the vendor supplied it that way, label printers, the scanner that books stock in.
Most IT providers manage the first and quietly avoid the second. The gap between them is where production stops.
Want the number first? Our pricing is published: AgileCORE from $85 and AgileCOMPLETE from $130 per user per month ex GST, plus the AgileSECURE add-on at $44. Estimate your monthly figure in two minutes, or book a conversation.
The line nobody draws
Where office IT stops and the plant begins
Nearly every manufacturer we talk to has a version of the same conversation waiting to happen. Something on the floor fails, it turns out to be a computer, and nobody can say whose computer it was. The machine vendor points at IT. IT points at the machine vendor. Production waits.
We would rather have that argument on day one, in writing, than at 6am on a Tuesday. This is the line as we normally draw it, and we will move it to suit your plant.
Our side of the line
We own this outright
- Every device a person signs in to: desks, the office floor, the supervisor's laptop, the tablet in the despatch area
- Microsoft 365, identity, multi-factor authentication and who can reach what
- The network, the wi-fi that has to reach the far end of the shed, and the links between sites
- Backup and tested restores of company data, including whatever the ERP writes
- Security monitoring, patching and the hardware replacement cycle, planned rather than reactive
The other side
We will not pretend to own this
- The logic running inside a machine, and anything a change to it would void
- Calibration, safety interlocks and the vendor's own support contract
- Process decisions about what the line should do
What we do take on is the boundary itself: segmenting plant equipment away from the office network, giving the machine vendor remote access that is controlled rather than permanent, and making sure a controller PC running an operating system nobody supports is a known risk with a plan, not a surprise.
Work out your own number
An hour of stopped production is not an IT ticket, it is an invoice
We will not quote you an industry average, because yours is the only figure that matters and you already have the inputs. Take the people standing idle, the output you do not make up, the order that ships late and the overtime that recovers it. Multiply by the number of times last year that something stopped and it turned out to be a computer.
Most owners have never done that sum. The ones who have stop arguing about the monthly cost of managed IT, because the comparison is no longer against zero. If part of your answer is ageing equipment, our hardware replacement calculator puts a figure on the cost of running it past its life.
Scope
What we take responsibility for
Agreed in writing on day one in a Responsibility and Accountability Matrix, so the boundary above is a document rather than an understanding.
The systems the business runs on
Microsoft 365 configured and managed, the server or cloud platform your ERP sits on monitored around the clock, and the vendor relationships handled so your operations manager is not the person chasing a licence key.
Everything with a sign-in
Standardised, monitored and patched, whether it is on a desk, in the office or mounted on a post in despatch. Shared logins on the floor get replaced with accounts that identify a person, because a shared login is a record of nothing.
Continuity
Backups that are tested by performing a restore, a documented route back from the failures that actually happen, and a replacement cycle planned against your production calendar rather than against a budget year.
Security that suits a target
Manufacturers are attacked because downtime creates pressure to pay. Multi-factor authentication, segmented networks, controlled vendor access and monitoring, aligned to the SMB1001 maturity framework through AgileSECURE.
Published pricing
AgileMANAGED: structured IT from $85 per user / month
We publish our pricing because a business that budgets a production line properly deserves to know the number before the first meeting, not after the third.
AgileCORE
Remote support, monitoring, security baselines and Microsoft 365 management. Suits an operation whose systems are already in good order.
View AgileCORE →AgileCOMPLETE
Everything in CORE, plus onsite support, managed servers with 24/7 monitoring, and quarterly business reviews. The usual fit where there is a plant to attend to.
View AgileCOMPLETE →Where we work
Based in Mornington, working through the industrial south east
Agile IT Solutions has been based in Mornington since 2007. A good share of the operations we look after sit in and around Dandenong South, close enough that someone can be standing in your plant when that is what the problem needs. Most issues are resolved remotely, and onsite support across our service area is included with AgileCOMPLETE.
If you would rather see how we work before talking about your own operation, our case studies set out what we actually did and what changed.
Questions
IT questions from manufacturers
We have a machine PC running an old operating system and the vendor says it cannot be changed. What do you do?
We believe the vendor, then we stop that machine being a route into everything else. The usual answer is to isolate it on its own network segment, remove its general internet access, control how the vendor reaches it, and hold an image of it so a dead hard drive costs a morning rather than a fortnight. We also put it on the replacement roadmap with a date, so the decision stays yours rather than one a failure makes for you.
Do you support our ERP or MRP system?
We do not write it and we are not its consultant. What we take responsibility for is everything underneath it: the server or cloud platform it runs on, the database, the backups, the devices and network that reach it, and the vendor relationship when something needs escalating. When the fault sits in the application, we deal with that vendor rather than handing you back a ticket number.
Our wi-fi does not reach the back of the shed. Is that an IT problem?
Yes, and it is one of the first things we tend to fix. A shed is a hostile environment for wi-fi: steel racking, moving plant, height, and often an installation sized for an office then stretched. It needs surveying properly and designing for the coverage the work actually needs, including scanners and tablets. Patchy coverage is usually read as a device problem, and it usually is not.
Our shifts start before the office does. Does support?
Support hours and the way out of hours is handled are set out in the agreement before you sign it, rather than discovered during an incident. Monitoring runs around the clock on AgileCOMPLETE whether or not anyone is on the floor, which is what catches the failure that starts at 2am and would otherwise greet the early shift.
How worried should a manufacturer be about cyber security?
More than most, because the calculation an attacker makes is about pressure, and stopped production creates pressure. The controls that matter are not exotic: multi-factor authentication everywhere, managed devices, segmentation between the office and the plant, controlled vendor access, tested backups and monitoring. AgileSECURE delivers that aligned to the SMB1001 maturity framework, and our compliance obligations page sets out what applies to Victorian businesses.
How do we get started?
A discovery conversation, and for a manufacturer that normally means a walk through the plant as well as a look at the office. We work out what you run on today, how it is managed, and where the gaps are, then set out what a structured managed service would look like. No obligation and no quote pushed at you in the first meeting.