Manufacturing

Factory networks that keep production machines (OT) apart from office PCs, plus CCTV and attendance for plants in Vientiane and the SEZs.

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What makes this sector hard

In many plants the PLCs, HMIs and the accounts PC share one flat network. One infected office laptop can reach the production line.
A voltage dip too short to see is enough to reboot a PLC, stop a line and corrupt an ERP database mid-write.
Hundreds of workers across shifts, plus overtime, need attendance records that both HR and the workforce trust.
Quality complaints and short shipments at the loading dock turn into week-long arguments without video.
Dust, heat and electrical noise from motors and VFDs cause high error rates on copper runs laid next to power cables.

Reference IT design

Start here: separate OT from IT

If you can only do one thing this year, do this. Move machines, PLCs and SCADA into their own VLANs/zones, put a firewall between them and the office network, and allow only the flows you can name (for example, MES pulling from the historian). Most of this can be done without touching a PLC, just switch ports and firewall rules, during a planned stop.

Old HMIs running out-of-support Windows are common and often can't be replaced, because the machine software only runs on that version. Isolate them, block USB, and keep them off the internet.

Network

Redundant core switches in the server room, with fiber to each building. Fiber ignores motor noise and doesn't care how close it runs to high-voltage cable.
DIN-rail industrial switches in control cabinets on the floor.
Where copper has to run near VFDs, use properly earthed shielded cable and keep it separated from power cables.
Warehouse Wi-Fi designed for barcode scanners and tablets.
Dual-ISP internet with failover, and SD-WAN to sales offices, warehouses and, where there is one, the parent company.

Cybersecurity

Next-generation firewalls at the perimeter and between OT and IT.
EDR on office PCs and servers.
Machine vendors' technicians will ask for TeamViewer straight into the HMI. Give them secure remote access instead, with MFA, per-session approval and full session logging.

CCTV, access and attendance

IP CCTV on production lines, warehouses, loading docks and the fence. Dock cameras should be able to read a pallet label, not just show a forklift.
License plate recognition at truck gates.
Face or card access control and time attendance feeding HR. With several hundred people clocking in at shift change, fast face readers keep the gate queue short.

Servers, power and building

Server virtualization for ERP, MES and accounting, with 3-2-1 backups including an offline copy.
UPS in the server room and every network cabinet. OT cabinets on the floor need their own small DIN-rail UPS too.
IoT temperature sensors in the server room and cold rooms.
Fire alarm sized for the plant and public address for announcements and evacuation.

Plants in special economic zones with a foreign parent usually arrive with a group IT standard. We design to it, then adapt it to Lao power and heat.

Send us the plant layout and a list of networked machines, and we'll draft an OT/IT zone plan for you to review.