The seven questions below take about an hour with your integrator before the cell ships.
Does the cell need to be on the network at all?
A robot controller dropped onto the same flat network as the front office, the shared printer, and everyone's email laptops inherits the risk of all of them.
How will the integrator support the cell remotely?
That can include the robot controller, the laptop used to program it, and whatever holds its backups.
Picture a 60-person job shop that just signed the PO for its first collaborative robot. The business case is solid: a machine-tending cell on two CNC lathes, a second shift that has been hard to staff, and an integrator who has built a dozen cells like it. The quote covers the arm, the gripper, the fixturing, the risk assessment, and two days of operator training. What it rarely covers is a single line about the network.
That gap is not the integrator's fault. Their job is a cell that runs, and good integrators are very good at it. But a modern cobot is also a networked computer, with an operating system, user accounts, a firmware update path, and often a cloud service or remote support channel behind it. In a shop with no dedicated IT staff, nobody is assigned to ask about any of that, so the answers get decided by default on commissioning day.
The seven questions below take about an hour with your integrator before the cell ships. They are much harder to answer after it is bolted to the floor and making parts.
1. Does the cell need to be on the network at all?
Start here, because the cheapest connection to secure is the one you never make. Plenty of machine-tending cells run on discrete I/O or a direct link to the machine control and never need to reach the office network. Others genuinely need a connection, for production monitoring, for program backups to a server, or for the vendor's fleet dashboard.
Ask the integrator to list every connection the cell will make, in both directions, and why. If the answer is "it just goes on the plant network," that is a decision worth slowing down.
2. If it connects, where does it sit?
A robot controller dropped onto the same flat network as the front office, the shared printer, and everyone's email laptops inherits the risk of all of them. The fix does not have to be elaborate. A separate VLAN for production equipment, with firewall rules that allow only the specific traffic the cell needs, is well within reach for a small shop. It is the single change that does the most to keep a problem on one side from becoming a problem on the other.
3. What are the accounts, and who changes the defaults?
Robot controllers and teach pendants commonly ship with default administrator and operator credentials, and the integrator needs them during commissioning. Agree up front on who sets new passwords at handover, where those credentials will be stored, and which access level your operators actually need day to day. An operator who can edit the safety configuration because nobody set up a lower-privilege login is a safety question as much as a security one.
4. How will the integrator support the cell remotely?
Remote support is one of the real advantages of buying from a good integrator, and you should want it. The question is how it is delivered. A cellular router mounted in the cabinet, a remote desktop tool installed on an HMI, and a VPN account on your firewall each carry different risks. The cellular option deserves the most attention, because it can create a path into your shop that never touches your firewall at all.
Ask for the method in writing: who on their side can use it, whether a session needs someone at your plant to approve it, and how it gets switched off if the relationship ends.
5. How are robot programs and configuration backed up?
The programs, tool and frame definitions, and calibration data that make the cell productive live on the controller. If that controller fails, or the engineering laptop holding the only other copy is lost or encrypted by ransomware, rebuilding from memory takes far longer than anyone budgets for.
Decide where backups go, how often they are taken, who takes them, and whether anyone has ever restored one. A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan.
6. How does firmware get updated?
Cobot vendors release controller and software updates, and some of them fix security problems. Find out how you will hear about them, who is allowed to apply them, and whether an update means bringing the integrator back on site or re-validating the cell. The worst time to learn your controller is three major versions behind is the week a vulnerability in that product line is in the news.
7. Does any of this touch defense work?
For shops in the defense supply chain, this question changes the stakes. If the cell runs parts under a contract covered by DFARS 252.204-7012, the drawings, and the part programs built from them, may be Controlled Unclassified Information. Any system that stores, processes, or transmits that information can fall inside the boundary you are obligated to protect under NIST SP 800-171. That can include the robot controller, the laptop used to program it, and whatever holds its backups.
That obligation has not moved with the recent changes to the CMMC timeline. It is far cheaper to decide at purchase whether the cell sits inside or outside that boundary, and to design for the answer, than to discover it during an assessment.
Who should be in the room
None of these questions require a security team. They require one meeting with the integrator, your production lead, and whoever handles IT for the shop, whether that is a person on staff or an outside provider. Write the answers down and keep them with the cell's documentation. Integrators generally appreciate knowing the rules before they show up, and the shop ends up with a cell that is easier to support for its whole service life.
A first cobot is a big step for a small manufacturer. It is worth making sure the cell the integrator hands over is one you can actually own.
