Most manufacturers already have remote access. But can they govern it?
Remote access is already a key part of everyday manufacturing operations. Plants use it to troubleshoot production issues, support remote sites, connect external vendors, and keep critical systems running when the right expert isn’t on site.
The problem is that remote access can quickly become a patchwork in many manufacturing environments. Different plants use different tools. Suppliers bring their own methods. Legacy systems stay in place because they still work. Acquisitions add more complexity. And over time, what started as a practical workaround becomes something much harder to manage.
That’s why standardized remote access is such an urgent topic in manufacturing. But rather than introducing remote connectivity from scratch, we now need to focus on bringing more visibility, control, and security to it.
Fragmentation rarely happens because teams make poor decisions. More often, it’s the natural result of growth.
Say, for example, a manufacturer acquires another company and inherits its tooling. Or a machine builder installs a remote access setup for service. One team adopts a niche solution for a specific plant. Another retains a legacy platform because one person knows how it works. Each choice makes sense at the time. But together, it can become unworkable.
And the downside is not only technical, but also operational and organizational.
Felix Wirthmann, Director of Product Management at TeamViewer, put it like this: “If you have 10 different systems, you have to patch 10 different systems, configure 10 different systems, and stay expert in all of them. That increases the risk of mistakes and backdoors.”
And the stakes are high. When remote access to a business system goes wrong, the impact is serious. But when remote access to a production system goes wrong, the impact can be much, much worse. Among other things, a cyber incident can stop the line, damage equipment, delay deliveries, and create safety risks.
Fragmented access also makes it harder to answer some basic questions. Which external users can access which assets? Which systems still rely on outdated tooling? Which connections are properly logged? Which tools are tied to service contracts, and which are simply legacy?
And here’s the catch: If you can’t answer those questions, you're not really managing remote access. You're putting up with it.
Manufacturing remote access often sits right at the fault line between IT and OT.
IT wants centralized control: one place to manage identities, define rules, apply zero-trust principles, and monitor activity across the environment. And that’s an entirely rational response to rising cyber risk, tighter regulations, and pressure from auditors, insurers, and leadership.
OT sees the world a bit differently. Production teams care first about uptime, safety, and operational continuity. They don’t want a new access model that slows support down, adds friction, or creates extra steps when a line is down.
That tension is real. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that IT and OT want opposite things. It just means they need a model that works for both.
And that, at its heart, is the real test of a standardized remote access strategy. It needs to give IT better governance without forcing OT into an impractical operating model.
Standardization doesn’t mean every plant, team, and supplier works in exactly the same way. It means remote access operates within one clear framework.
In practice, that should include centralized permissions, consistent identity management, and rules that define who can access what, when, and under which conditions. It should also include strong logging and clear audit trails, so teams can see what happened during a session and prove compliance when needed.
For IT, that creates a single source of truth: one central place to control access, define security rules, and connect everything to user management, Active Directory, and identity providers.
For OT, it should still feel simple. The best remote access tool is the one people don’t have to think about when something needs fixing.
That’s why standardization matters. It replaces scattered, inconsistent access with a model that’s easier to govern, easier to scale, and easier to trust.
This is where many standardization efforts fall apart. The business agrees that security needs to improve, but the rollout assumes every endpoint can be treated like a standard IT device.
In manufacturing, that’s rarely true. Some assets are legacy systems. Some are warranty sensitive. Some shouldn’t have third-party software installed on them at all. In those environments, the safest rollout is often the least intrusive one.
That’s why Agentless Access matters so much. As Felix explained, “With Agentless Access, you deploy a gateway on a server or virtual machine inside the customer’s network, but you don’t install anything on the target devices themselves.”
That approach is highly relevant on the shop floor, where manufacturers may not want anyone to touch the underlying components of a machine. Instead of changing each endpoint, teams can enable secure access through a controlled gateway. This is critical in industrial environments where human-machine interfaces and programmable logic controllers often don’t allow third-party installations.
Hybrid Conditional Access matters for a similar reason. In segmented or isolated networks, manufacturers still need a way to apply secure access controls without exposing sensitive systems more broadly. Here, standardization has to work with the architecture on the ground, not against it.
Our complimentary buyer’s guide delivers the information you need to know exactly what to expect from your remote access vendor.
The biggest mistake is assuming this is a switch you flip. It’s much more realistic, and productive, to think of it as a process that’s only set in motion with broad buy-in.
This is especially true in manufacturing, where supplier relationships, service contracts, remote hardware, and plant-specific workflows all determine what’s possible. In some cases, a machine builder’s tooling is embedded in the support model. In others, legacy access persists simply because no one has had the time to untangle it.
That’s why, long before you even think about choosing a vendor, you have to understand your current toolchain. Without that, standardization rests on simple guesswork.
If your current setup feels too fragmented, start with four simple questions.
1. Where does remote access already exist across the business?
Map the tools, assets, plants, and suppliers involved.
2. Who is allowed to access what?
This gets to the heart of the issue.
3. Where does your biggest risk sit?
External vendor access, legacy systems, and poorly documented connections usually deserve early attention.
4. What kind of governance model do you actually want?
That includes approvals, role-based permissions, identity integration, logging, and clear ownership.
Only then should you start evaluating platforms.
The right platform should fit your strategy, not force you to rewrite it. It should support centralized user management, Single Sign-on (SSO), Conditional Access, detailed session logging, and deployment models that respect the realities of OT environments.
For one manufacturer, the challenge was figuring out how to give external vendors access to sensitive production systems in a way that met security and compliance expectations, including NIS2.
The existing model relied on VPN-based access and no longer fit the level of control required. What was needed was a more secure, standardized model to support external vendor access across the production environment.
The goal was to move from simple connectivity to control. Instead of relying on broad access methods, the company adopted a zero-trust model that supports both IT and OT assets more securely and has made the environment easier to maintain.
And this is exactly what a standardized remote access solution should do: allow access for external experts only as they need it, rather than open the whole network and invite security incidents. In short, more control, visibility, and less risk.
Most manufacturers already have remote access in some form. The question is whether they have too many disconnected ways to reach critical systems, too little visibility into external activity, and too much risk tied up in old tooling.
Done well, standardization gives IT the control it needs and OT the usability it expects. It reduces the attack surface without slowing production. Vendor access becomes easier to govern, and compliance easier to prove. And it gives the business something it often lacks today: a clear view of what’s happening when people connect to the systems that matter most.
Junior Product Marketing Manager at TeamViewer
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As Junior Product Marketing Manager, Lydia drives the go-to-market strategy for TeamViewer Tensor for operational technology. Her main focus is ensuring product messaging and positioning align with market needs, industry demands, and customer feedback. Lydia holds a master’s degree from the University of Vienna.
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