Note: This case study is illustrative. Client details are anonymised and figures are representative of typical OAS engagements.
The challenge
A mid-size manufacturer with four plants across Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal depended on a two-person internal IT team and an hourly-rate support contractor. The model was entirely reactive. Problems were fixed after production had already stopped.
The numbers told the story. Patch compliance across roughly 300 endpoints and 28 servers sat at 61%. Backup jobs failed silently for weeks at a time. A single switch failure at the KwaZulu-Natal plant had previously halted dispatch operations for a full shift.
Management also recognised a growing security exposure. Manufacturing is among the most targeted sectors for ransomware, and the firm's ageing antivirus offered little protection at the IT/OT boundary.
The approach
OAS began with a discovery audit across all four sites, producing an environment baseline and a prioritised risk register. The assessment was blunt: unpatched systems and unverified backups were the two most likely causes of the next major outage.
Deployment followed the Three Pillar Managed Security framework. SentinelOne EDR replaced the legacy antivirus on every endpoint and server. N-able N-central was rolled out as the monitoring and management backbone, with automated patching scheduled around production shifts so plants were never interrupted. Cove Data Protection replaced the failing tape regime with cloud-first backup and daily verification.
Monitoring thresholds were tuned to the realities of a manufacturing environment — plant-floor terminals, warehouse scanners, and head-office finance systems each carry different tolerances. OAS's service desk now responds against defined SLAs, with 15-minute response on critical incidents.
The internal IT team was not displaced. OAS onboarded them with runbooks, escalation paths, and admin training, freeing them to support production projects rather than fight fires.
The outcome
- Patch compliance lifted from 61% to 98% across endpoints and servers within 90 days
- Unplanned IT downtime reduced by more than two thirds in the first year
- Backup success verified daily, with quarterly test restores proving recoverability
- Zero successful ransomware incidents since deployment, with attempted intrusions neutralised autonomously
- Monthly reporting and quarterly business reviews giving management clear visibility of IT risk
The engagement has since expanded to include a vCIO advisory retainer, guiding the manufacturer's ERP upgrade and network refresh planning.