A plant network spans machinery, handhelds, quality systems, offices and yard, in an environment full of metal, motors and electrical noise. It also carries operational technology that must stay separated from business IT. Immunity designs and manufactures the whole stack in India.
Manufacturing combines physical RF hostility with an organisational requirement for separation that most other sectors do not face.
Machinery, structural steel, conveyors, cladding and stacked materials reflect and absorb signal. Coverage in a plant is rarely a matter of distance; it is a matter of line of sight and reflection.
Motors, drives, welding equipment and switchgear generate interference across the industrial environment. A design that ignores it performs differently on a running shift than on a quiet commissioning day.
Production lines are reconfigured, machinery is moved and stock is stacked differently. A coverage design validated once is not permanent, and the network has to tolerate change.
Operational technology on the shop floor and business IT in the offices share a site but should not share a network. In many plants this separation is also an audit requirement.
We survey the plant in operating condition, because a silent factory and a running one are different RF environments.
| Area | What it needs | How we cover it |
|---|---|---|
| Production floor | Coverage around machinery and structural steel | Placement designed for line of sight, not an even grid |
| Assembly and quality stations | Sustained handheld and terminal use | Density-oriented indoor coverage |
| Raw material and finished goods | Stacked stock that changes coverage | Racking-aware placement, re-validated after layout change |
| Maintenance and utilities | Coverage in plant rooms and service areas | Extended indoor coverage where staff work |
| Yard, loading and boundary | Outdoor coverage in weather | Ruggedised outdoor access points (AX821) |
| Offices and administration | Business systems and staff devices | Separate VLAN from operational technology |
Separation between operational technology and business IT is the defining requirement of a plant network.
Machinery, controllers and production systems, isolated on their own VLAN with tightly restricted policy and no path from business or guest networks.
Handhelds, quality terminals and maintenance devices, separated from both OT control traffic and office IT.
Office systems, ERP access and staff devices on their own segment.
CCTV, access control and any visitor access segmented separately again.
Separation is enforced on distinct VLANs by NetForce switching, with inter-VLAN policy applied at the NetGuard X5 gateway — so the isolation is structural rather than a rule that can be misconfigured away.
Plant deployments favour hardware and design choices that tolerate the environment:
All of it is designed and manufactured by Immunity in India, at our facility in Sanand GIDC, Gujarat. Our equipment is MTCTE certified (and CE, FCC & RoHS compliant), with products listed on the Trusted Telecom Portal. Ask us for current certification status on the models in your design and we will confirm in writing.
The operating model has to assume the plant will change and that downtime is expensive.
When a line moves or stacking changes, coverage changes. We recommend re-surveying affected areas rather than waiting for handheld failures to reveal the gap.
Central monitoring surfaces degradation before production staff report it, which in manufacturing is the difference between maintenance and downtime.
Plants host contractors constantly. Time-bound portal access keeps them online without giving them a route into operational systems.
Access points, switching, gateway and cloud from one Indian OEM, so faults are diagnosed rather than passed between suppliers.
They can share physical infrastructure while being strictly separated on distinct VLANs enforced in switching hardware, with policy at the gateway. In many plants this separation is also an audit requirement.
By surveying with plant running rather than idle, and designing placement and channel plans around the noise that is actually present.
Coverage changes with layout. We recommend re-validating affected areas after significant changes, which is a short exercise compared with diagnosing intermittent handheld failures.
Yes. Ruggedised outdoor access points extend the same managed network to yard, loading and boundary areas.
Yes. Immunity designs and manufactures at Sanand GIDC, Gujarat. Our equipment is MTCTE certified (and CE, FCC & RoHS compliant), with products listed on the Trusted Telecom Portal.
Plant network purchases are usually scrutinised differently from office IT, and for good reasons.
Because OT and IT separation is enforced on distinct VLANs in switching hardware rather than by configuration alone, the design is documentable for audit rather than dependent on a rule set staying correct.
Equipment is designed and manufactured in India, which is directly relevant where procurement policy favours domestic supply or where supply-chain traceability is scrutinised.
Indian manufacturing shortens the supply chain for both initial rollout and replacement units — which matters when a failed access point sits over a production line.
Support comes directly from the OEM with India-based engineers, rather than through an overseas vendor queue during a production incident.
A useful design needs a little information up front. None of it is onerous, and it saves a round of revisions later.
From that we produce a design document with access point count and placement, switching and PoE requirements, segmentation design and the management model. You are free to tender against it.
Tell us the plant layout, production environment, device fleet and your OT separation requirements. Our engineers will design the network and send datasheets, usually within one business day.
Request a plant network survey
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