On the road to Industry 4.0, smart factories are one of the stops.
At Atlas Copco, we are continuously innovating for tomorrow, creating solutions that aim to make manufacturing simpler and smarter to improve uptime. However, this digitalization of assembly solutions can also leave them vulnerable to a new threat to your production.
As smart connected solutions integrate into your assembly, it is more important than ever to keep them and your operators safe during production. The threat of cyber-attacks is on the rise, and they can do more damage than you may have expected. In a previous article, we discussed how cyber-attacks can put your tools and operators in danger, but they can also significantly impact your uptime.
Unusable equipment
Industry 4.0 is bringing about innovative technologies that improve your assembly. However, it is also introducing everyone to new risks and challenges. Smart connected solutions are a great way to improve your quality, efficiency, and uptime, but they can also increase your facility's vulnerabilities. In production-critical applications, your production may come to a full stop, increasing downtime and affecting your bottom line.
If a cyber-attack takes place at the server level, downtime costs are compounded by resource costs to contain and eradicate the source, stopping production for hours, days, or even weeks. Therefore, a proactive solution is your best defense. Similarly, shutting down your servers, especially in production-critical applications, reduces productivity and results in added costs for each hour your facility is down. If your facility remains down for several days or even weeks, there can be significant costs for your business.
How you can be better prepared
You may not be able to completely stop a cyber-attack from happening, but there are things you can do to protect your facility from threats. Should a cyber-attack impact your operations, a plan to recover and restore your assembly processes is the best thing to have in your tool belt.
Your recovery plan should describe the process by which your facility will be completely up and running. This will include strategies that will minimize the cost for your business and steps that should be taken to contain the incident, maintain your operations, and protect your most critical tools, data, and applications.
To sum it up
Protecting your facility from cyber hacking is more important now than ever before. Smart solutions are designed to improve your quality, productivity, and operator ergonomics; however, without good cyber security, they are also vulnerable to attacks.
At Atlas Copco, we believe that your success is our success. Whether you need a smart solution to improve your daily assembly processes or guidance on how you can protect your uptime should a cyber-attack threaten your facility, we want to help. Contact your local RSM today for more details.