Manufacturing

Fractional IT Director for Manufacturers

UK manufacturers face a unique IT challenge — the convergence of operational technology on the shop floor with corporate IT systems creates cyber risks that most MSPs and most IT directors do not fully understand. A ransomware attack that reaches production systems does not just expose data — it stops the line.

Discuss your IT risk Our services

The OT/IT Convergence Problem

For most businesses, a cyber incident is a data problem. For manufacturers, it can be a production problem. As factory floors become increasingly connected — PLCs, SCADA systems, industrial IoT sensors, ERP integrations — the boundary between your corporate network and your operational technology has dissolved. Most IT professionals have never worked in a manufacturing environment. They understand firewalls and endpoints; they do not understand how a compromised workstation can propagate across a network segment and reach the controller managing a production line.

Northstar's fractional IT director service is built around independent advice with no vendor allegiances. We work alongside your existing IT support — whether that is an in-house team, an MSP, or a mix of both — to provide board-level oversight and strategic direction that your current arrangements almost certainly cannot provide.

OT/IT convergence means the path from a phishing email to a PLC controller is shorter than most manufacturers realise — and the consequences reach far beyond the server room.

Production Downtime Is the Real Cost

The manufacturing sector has become one of the most heavily targeted industries for ransomware, precisely because the cost of downtime is so immediate and measurable. Every hour a production line is halted has a known cost. Attackers understand this; they set ransom demands accordingly. The average manufacturing ransomware incident costs orders of magnitude more in lost production than any ransom payment — and that calculation assumes you can recover at all without paying.

Backups and antivirus are not a manufacturing cyber strategy. A proper OT security posture requires network segmentation between corporate and production environments, asset inventories that include every connected device on the shop floor, patching strategies for systems that cannot be taken offline arbitrarily, and incident response plans that account for production recovery, not just data recovery. These are disciplines that sit at the intersection of IT and operations management, and very few advisers operate there comfortably.

ERP Oversight and System Integrity

Manufacturing businesses run on their ERP platform. Whether you are using Sage 200, SAP Business One, Epicor, Microsoft Dynamics, or a sector-specific system, your ERP holds your bill of materials, your production schedules, your supplier relationships, and your financial controls. It is also frequently one of the least well-governed systems in the business.

Northstar provides independent oversight of ERP implementations, upgrades, and integrations — with no financial relationship with any ERP vendor. We have seen too many manufacturers over-sold on capability they will never use, locked into contracts that do not serve their operational needs, and left without adequate data governance around a system that is genuinely business-critical. An independent fractional IT director brings the scrutiny that your ERP vendor's account manager will never apply.

Supply Chain IT Requirements

If you supply into Tier 1 automotive, aerospace, or defence primes, your customers increasingly require demonstrable cyber security standards as a condition of supply. These requirements are moving down the supply chain faster than most SME manufacturers have noticed. Failing to meet them is no longer just a compliance issue — it is a commercial risk.

Northstar helps manufacturers understand what their customers actually require, assess their current posture honestly, and build a credible improvement roadmap. We do not oversell the complexity or the solution; we give you an accurate picture and help you close the gap at a pace and cost your business can sustain.

Cyber Essentials Plus for Defence and Aerospace Supply Chains

Cyber Essentials Plus is increasingly a mandatory requirement for businesses supplying into UK defence and aerospace programmes. The standard itself is achievable for most manufacturers; the challenge is that it requires systematic evidence gathering, a clean technical posture across all in-scope systems, and an assessor-facing readiness that many businesses underestimate when they begin the process.

Northstar prepares manufacturers for Cyber Essentials Plus certification. We conduct an independent pre-assessment, identify the gaps that would cause a failure, and work with your IT support to close them before the formal assessment. We do not carry out the certification itself — we have no financial relationship with any certifying body — which means our pre-assessment is genuinely independent.

CMMC Awareness for US-Connected Manufacturers

If your business supplies into US defence programmes, or if you have a US parent or customer that handles Controlled Unclassified Information, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) framework will affect you. CMMC 2.0 applies to the entire supply chain handling CUI, and the compliance requirements are substantially more demanding than Cyber Essentials.

Northstar provides CMMC awareness advisory for UK manufacturers navigating US supply chain requirements. We help you understand your obligations, assess the gap between your current posture and the relevant CMMC level, and build a prioritised improvement plan. We work with US-qualified assessors where formal certification is required; our role is to ensure you are not walking into that process blind.

Industrial IoT Sprawl and Asset Visibility

The growth of connected devices on manufacturing sites has frequently outpaced the governance structures around them. Condition monitoring sensors, connected tooling, environmental controls, quality inspection systems — many manufacturers have accumulated a significant estate of networked devices that are not inventoried, not patched, and not considered in any security or resilience planning.

You cannot protect what you cannot see. Northstar conducts independent IT and OT asset reviews, producing the accurate picture of your connected environment that effective security planning requires. We then work with your IT support to establish the governance processes that keep that picture current as your estate evolves.

Independent Advice, No Vendor Relationships

Northstar does not resell technology. We do not take referral fees from MSPs, security vendors, ERP suppliers, or certifying bodies. Our only commercial relationship is with you. That independence is the foundation of genuinely useful advice — particularly in a sector where technology vendors are sophisticated at selling into operational complexity and where the consequences of poor IT decisions are measured in production hours, not server uptime.

Our fractional model means you access senior IT and cyber advisory capability at a fraction of the cost of a full-time IT director, without the overhead of a full consulting engagement. We work at the level your board needs — strategic, honest, and commercially grounded — while remaining close enough to the operational detail to be practically useful.

Start a Conversation

If you would like to discuss your manufacturing IT or cyber position — informally, with no obligation — use the form below. We respond to every enquiry personally.

Manufacturers need independent IT oversight

Your MSP manages your infrastructure. Your ERP vendor manages your system. Neither has a commercial incentive to tell you what you actually need to hear about your technology risk. A fractional IT director does.

Start a conversation View all services