How should manufacturers reduce access friction without weakening security?

Manufacturers should remove repeated authentication steps with SSO, use MFA that fits the work environment, and standardise access across devices and locations. The goal is to keep assurance intact while eliminating delays that disrupt shift changes, onboarding, and frontline work. Access design should be judged by its effect on throughput as well as risk.

Why This Matters for Security Teams

Manufacturing access friction is not just an inconvenience. When operators, maintenance staff, and contractors lose time to repeated prompts, shared passwords, or inconsistent device checks, they work around the controls. That creates shadow access paths, delays at shift change, and higher error rates during high-pressure production windows. NHI Management Group’s Ultimate Guide to NHIs shows how often identity controls fail when they are designed for convenience alone rather than lifecycle discipline.

The security problem is that friction usually rises fastest where assurance is least structured: legacy OT segments, mixed IT and plant-floor environments, and third-party maintenance access. A practical access model has to preserve assurance without forcing users into repeated, low-value authentication steps. The OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 is also relevant here because manufacturing environments increasingly depend on machine identities, APIs, service accounts, and automated workflows that should not be handled like static human logins. In practice, many security teams encounter unsafe workarounds only after a line stoppage, contractor exception, or account-sharing incident has already occurred, rather than through intentional access design.

How It Works in Practice

Reducing friction without weakening security starts by separating authentication from repeated interruption. Users should authenticate once through centrally managed SSO, then move through approved applications and plant systems with consistent session policy. MFA should be fit for purpose: phishing-resistant methods for privileged access, and context-appropriate methods for routine access where device trust and network posture already add assurance. The aim is to make the security decision happen at the edge of the session, not at every task.

For manufacturing, the strongest pattern is to standardise access by role, location, and device class while keeping exceptions explicit and temporary. That means:

• Using SSO to remove repeated logins across MES, ERP, ticketing, and maintenance tools.
• Applying conditional access so trusted devices and known plant locations face fewer prompts.
• Using privileged access management for administrative tasks, with just-in-time elevation when needed.
• Reducing password reuse by replacing shared credentials with individual accountability and strong audit trails.
• Aligning access windows with shifts, maintenance jobs, and vendor work orders instead of static monthly approvals.

This approach is consistent with NIST guidance on digital identity and zero trust, especially where access decisions should be based on current risk rather than one-time enrollment. Current guidance suggests that the best user experience comes from fewer, better-timed checks, not weaker checks. NHI Management Group’s Ultimate Guide to NHIs – Key Challenges and Risks reinforces the same principle for machine access: reduce standing access, limit credential exposure, and make revocation simple. These controls tend to break down when plant systems cannot support federated identity or when shared legacy terminals force everyone into the same local account model.

Common Variations and Edge Cases

Tighter access control often increases rollout and support overhead, so manufacturers have to balance assurance against production continuity. That tradeoff is most visible in plants with air-gapped segments, long-lived OT assets, or contractors who rotate frequently. In those environments, the right answer is usually not a universal MFA policy, but a layered model that combines device trust, segmented access, and tightly scoped exceptions.

There is no universal standard for this yet, but current guidance suggests a few practical variations. High-risk actions such as engineering changes, recipe updates, and remote admin access should use stronger verification than routine operator access. Break-glass access should exist, but only with full logging, explicit expiration, and post-event review. For third-party engineers, access should be time-bound and tied to a work order, not left open for convenience. Where shared kiosks or shop-floor terminals are unavoidable, the design should minimise reauthentication without allowing credential reuse across users.

The strongest programs treat access friction as a measurable operational issue, then tune controls based on task criticality and environment. That is the same lesson seen across NHI incidents: the weakest point is often not the authentication method itself, but the exception path that nobody reviewed. The 52 NHI Breaches Analysis shows how fast small identity shortcuts become systemic exposure when they are left in place.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

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