How Manufacturing Companies Can Justify New IT Solutions

with Toby Pinter of Otto USA

It can be hard for IT teams to see the direct impact their effort has on workflows, employees and clients, unless you’re in the manufacturing industry. The operations of a manufacturing company are incredibly visual, sweeping across tens of thousands of square feet of machinery, assembling lines and loading docks. Their tangible products are no less reliant on information technology than a SaaS company.

2021 Focus for IT Teams in Manufacturing

As the Information Technology Manager at Otto USA, Toby Pinter describes his role as “a little bit of everything.” From WAN management to IT infrastructure optimization to cybersecurity, he works with Otto’s IT Director, Systems Analyst and Application Developer to protect the company from outlying threats and streamline business operations through IT.

Otto USA is in the plastic injection & molding business. Their primary products are waste and recycling containers used across the U.S. 

“In 2021, we’re focusing on a few projects. We’re improving our telephony system with Microsoft Teams, we’re cleaning up our file servers and we’re improving our RFID technology. We use RFID projects in container commissioning to make sure the right carts go out the door. This also helps the haulers confirm what they have on board. We’re always open to innovations that reduce the possibility of human error at our manufacturing plants. There’s so much time spent scanning tags and organizing logistics that we want to automate more of that for our team.”

Where to find budget for new IT solutions

The hardest part of exploring new technology for most IT professionals is getting their leadership teams to look at the information technology department as a revenue generating business unit, and not just a cost center.

“Before working with Opkalla, when I wanted new solutions, I did a lot of research on my own. When reaching out to vendors, I just wasn’t getting the level of feedback or expertise that I wanted - they’d only recommend one or two solutions that likely didn’t fit my budget,” Toby noted.

In 2020, Otto was researching PEN testing solutions and enhancing endpoint security, especially for mobile device management. Even if Toby found a perfect solution, he knew it’d be a challenge to meet the company’s IT budget. Luckily, he had just started talking to Opkalla and they helped identify cost savings that could pay for the project. 

“Opkalla helped us get creative and find funding for the projects we needed by saving on the solutions we already had. We found ways to save on our telecom solution, enough to free up budget for endpoint security (through SentinelOne and IronScales) and email security solutions we needed.” In addition to finding extra budget, Toby and Opkalla also put together stats of the cost of getting hit with ransomware, even once, to show the ROI and need for the endpoint security solutions.”  

Email Security & MDM for Manufacturing Firms

Overall, IronScales is Toby’s favorite solution they’ve implemented in the last year. Before, his IT team relied on users reporting email threats and manual processes to mitigate.  “Now we can go in, view all the activity, and within 1-2 clicks we can mitigate those cybersecurity threats. IronScales saves us a ton of time and manual processes,” Toby added.

Their new mobile device management (MDM) tools have helped their IT team lock devices down when needed and especially control data usage. They’re also working on putting usage threshold reports and compliance policies in place that the MDM solution can monitor.

Otto’s IT team also upgraded their Microsoft licensing through Opkalla’s Cloud Services Provider offering. They had been having regular sync issues and at times couldn’t even get into the portal - they even purchased additional licenses/accounts just for when they knew they wouldn’t be able to get in. 

“It was tolerable, but who wants a system that’s tolerable?” Toby said. (And we are tempted to turn this into an Opkalla theme song.)

“Opkalla adds value as a trusted partner because they free up our time so we can lean on their expertise. They lead us in researching and filtering a list of solutions and licenses, instead of us having to deal with a limitless list of possibilities,” concluded Toby.

The Impact of COVID & IOT on Manufacturing

In addition to the solutions he wants to explore for 2021, Toby said Otto’s biggest challenges have been staffing in the wake of COVID. Manufacturing plants, dense with workers, have had extra regulations and procedures to comply with that have impacted operations.

“But cloud communications, like Microsoft Teams, and the IOT solutions of the future will help us be better prepared for staffing impacts and changes in the future.”

Sensors and automating movement of goods help manufacturing processes be less dependent on humans, and help humans trust the IT that makes their job easier.

We’d Love to Help

We love working with Toby and the Otto USA IT team. If you want to hear how Opkalla can help your team sort through IT solutions and identify cost savings to pay for them, contact us today.