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Manufacturing

IT support for manufacturers

From steel plate processing to excavator attachments, a stopped production line costs money by the hour. Layer3 keeps ERP, CAD/CAM and plant networks running, so machines keep cutting, nesting and shipping.

Established

Wellington, since 2005

Certified

ISO/IEC 27001:2022

Private cloud

Auckland private cloud cluster with failover in Wellington

Applications

Line-of-business software supported alongside Microsoft 365

The problem

Production does not wait for IT to catch up

Three problems come up again and again on the shop floor.

Uptime

The plant does not stop for IT

A production line does not pause for a patch window. When ERP or a CNC controller drops mid run, work on the floor stops with it. We schedule and monitor around your shifts, not office hours.

Network

OT and IT share a network they were never meant to share

CNC controllers, nesting stations and label printers often sit on the same network as email and file shares. We segment OT from corporate IT and layer in MFA, EDR and SIEM so a compromised laptop cannot reach a machine controller.

Licensing

A licence server outage stops the floor

Design, nesting and drafting software all depend on a licence server or dongle. If it goes down, workstations and cutters sit idle even though nothing else is broken. We back up and monitor licence services the same way we do the ERP.

Applications

The systems your plant runs on

These are the platforms manufacturers actually run, and the ones our engineers already know how to keep online.

Syteline

SQL and IIS tuning, upgrade planning, backup and disaster recovery, and low latency links between office, plant and warehouse.

SolidWorks + PDM

GPU optimised workstations, PDM vault care and replication, fast file shares, and licence server setup.

Global Shop Solutions

Server health and database maintenance, report queues, and scanner and label workflows that keep jobs moving.

PrimeCut (nesting)

Reliable program transfer to cutters, controller sync, permissions, licence and dongle management, and configuration backups.

CADMAN (LVD)

Application and database care, program transfer to laser and press brake, OT network segmentation, and role based access.

AutoCAD

Licence management, DWG performance over WAN, plotter drivers, and drawings in SharePoint with version control.

How we run it

The operational detail that keeps a plant running

Five things we get right on every manufacturing site.

Network

OT stays off the corporate network

CNC controllers, nesting stations and shop floor scanners sit on their own segmented network, kept apart from email, file shares and everyday laptops.

Connectivity

Low latency between office, plant and warehouse

ERP traffic between office, plant and warehouse runs over links we size and monitor for latency, not just bandwidth, so scans and updates do not lag on the floor.

Workstations

Workstations built for CAD and CAM load

Design and nesting workstations are specced with the GPU those applications actually need, not a standard office build.

Recovery

Backups and DR that include licence servers

Disaster recovery plans cover the database and the licence server together, so a restore brings back a system you can actually log into, not just data.

Continuity

Backups that cover Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive

Point-in-time restores for Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive, with recovery point and recovery time targets tested, not assumed.

Proof

Who we already look after

Customer example

ECL Group

Fuel systems and technology across New Zealand, with more than 250 people depending on equipment that cannot stop. Layer3 runs the infrastructure behind it.

Why Layer3

What every sector gets from us

Sector experience

We have run these systems before

Not a general IT provider learning your industry on your budget. We already support the applications your sector runs on, and we can name them.

Security and compliance

ISO/IEC 27001 certified operations

Certified to ISO/IEC 27001, with Privacy Act 2020 aligned retention, documented controls, and evidence you can hand to your own auditor.

Application expertise

The line-of-business app is the business

When the practice management system is down, nothing else matters. We treat those applications as first-class infrastructure, not as someone else's problem.

Vendor coordination

We deal with your software vendor

One escalation path. We hold the vendor relationship, chase the ticket and translate the answer, instead of leaving you between two suppliers.

Questions

What sector buyers actually ask

If yours is not here, ask it directly and you will get a straight answer.

For a lot of sector-specific software we already do, and we will tell you straight on the call if that is the case. Where we do not, we take it on as part of onboarding: we get access, document how it is supported, and hold the vendor relationship from day one so you are not the one on hold with the software company.

We do. You raise it with us, not the vendor, and we log the ticket, chase it, and translate whatever comes back into something your team can act on. One escalation path, not three.

They stay supported, not stranded. Where latency or licensing makes cloud impractical, we can run the workload on our Auckland private cloud cluster with failover in Wellington instead of forcing a move that does not fit.

Yes. That is Co-Managed IT: we take on the parts you want off your plate and stay out of the parts you do not, with one agreed line for who owns what. See how Co-Managed IT works.

It depends on how many systems and vendors are involved, so we will not give you a number that does not hold up. What we do promise is a documented onboarding plan before anything changes: we map your applications and vendors, agree what moves and in what order, and only cut a system over once it is proven in the new setup.

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