Northbridge Manufacturing Case Study

Northbridge Manufacturing SD-WAN Modernisation

Manufacturing

  • Resilient SD-WAN across every plant and site

  • Operational technology segmented from IT

  • Fewer production-impacting outages

  • One observable, co-managed estate

About the Client

A multi-site manufacturer held back by its network

Northbridge Manufacturing runs production across several UK plants alongside warehousing and head office functions. Inconsistent connectivity, ageing links and a flat network meant outages on the factory floor and growing risk to operational technology.

Principle Networks designed and now co-manages a resilient SD-WAN that treats every site as part of one secure, observable estate.

The challenge

Keeping production running on a network it had outgrown

Ageing links and a flat network were causing outages on the factory floor and exposing operational technology to unnecessary risk. Northbridge needed resilience and segmentation without halting production.

The results

What changed for Northbridge

A managed SD-WAN now connects every plant and site with automatic failover, while operational technology sits in its own secure segment. Our UK team monitors and manages the estate around the clock.

99.99%

Site availability

With automatic failover

70%

Fewer production outages

Year on year since rollout

6

Sites unified

Plants, warehousing and head office

24/7

UK co-managed operations

Monitoring across the estate

For the first time, the factory floor and IT are on the same page. When something moves on the network, we see it, and production keeps running.
David Owens Head of IT, Northbridge Manufacturing
How we did it

Resilience and segmentation, plant by plant

We rolled out managed SD-WAN with dual paths and automatic failover, then segmented operational technology away from corporate IT. Each site was migrated during planned windows to protect production.

  • check_circle Dual-path SD-WAN with automatic failover
  • check_circle Operational technology segmentation
  • check_circle Planned, production-safe migrations
  • check_circle 24/7 UK monitoring and management