Prepare your production site for connectivity

Many industrial production sites are not connected to the outside world because of legitimate concerns regarding cyber-attacks. Furthermore, industry business leaders cannot afford the repercussions of a well-orchestrated cyber-attack, which can lead to operations slowdown, shutdown or the loss of valuable intellectual property. Covid-19 has changed the game for business. Employees are working from home en masse for the first time in history. The concept of remote connectivity has been adapted, as digital assets are accessed remotely from mostly unsecure home networks.

Today more than ever there is an implicit need for remote access to customer assets. No one knows when the need for travel restrictions and social distancing will end and if and when they may arise again. The barriers between remote home access and the industrial OT network have crumbled. Organizations need to operate with a minimum staff on site, and to be supported by colleagues or third-party companies who are also working remotely. The main goal is to keep the best possible ongoing production available while leveraging know-how from remote employees.

Preconditions for remote access

In order to maintain secure access from the outside world to a customer site, it is important to manage who has access to assets and service channels.

Classic cyber security solutions have limited ability to prevent cyber attacks affecting the production floor. This is due to the inherent uniqueness of the OT (operational technology) industrial environment. Our remote access solution remOT ensures that every connection is securely managed and only grants access to assets and services to authorized remote personnel.

“remOT” can be deployed quickly, requiring no changes in firewall rules or end-point configuration. Administrators can easily manage users’ and groups’ access permissions and introduce secure remote connectivity to an entire plant or multiple sites within hours. remOT’s low latency design even allows connectivity even to remote sites that have low-quality connection. In doing so, remOT manages asset access for customers and third-party companies in a simple and secure manner.

Metris Remote Assistance connects any person in the field to a process/equipment expert to provide remote assistance through audio, video and AR-guided support. Metris Remote Assistance (RAS) enables real-time communication with more powerful features than Skype and MS Teams. Metris Remote Assistance offers remote audio, video, AR, and document exchange. This enables Andritz to provide real-time service and communication to customers. The new “remote access to industrial assets era” that we are entering makes it easy to offer quick and easy communication between employees, third parties and customers.