“Workers see a lot of opportunities,” says Irani-Famili, who has worked in the electronics sector for ten years. For the challenges they face on a daily basis, OT dreams of what is possible. For example, in the event of a power outage, appropriate controllers may receive notifications wherever they are. Or staff availability information can flow through the company’s machines so that supervisors and supervisors can easily share projects or changes.
“Then he goes to talk to IT, and the IT response could be ‘Impossible. This could be a breach of all security measures,’ ‘Irani-Famili says. Operations see solutions. works, what they see with a red IT tape, IT doesn’t fit, or IT doesn’t play. ”
It is easy to describe IT and OT as different departments with different goals and different cultures. They are often run independently in organizations and are seen as isolation groups that face some challenges and apply their own methods. But this leads to inefficient, costly installations that fail to promote skills and sustainability.
As the global economy expands just before the collapse of the 2020 coronavirus, pressure is at stake to improve productivity, innovation, and energy. Companies need to increase business speed by using digital technologies and using the internet of things and artificial intelligence (AI) to gain as much information as possible from larger sets.
In order to make such digital transformation in industries that rely heavily on material resources — manufacturing, oil and gas, transportation, energy, and resources – organizations need to integrate IT and OT into a single seamless organization that integrates systems on both sides.
“IT / OT connectivity is inevitable,” says Fay Cranmer, Accenture’s chief environmental officer and former chief information officer at the Rio Tinto mining company. “It’s the only way to change digital, especially for rich companies.”
But there are serious problems that need to be resolved. Many industrial areas have well-known, time-honored tools, bookkeeping methods, and resistance to change — from all aspects of business, OT and IT. Often the idea is, OT alone knows how to create products and services that bring money to the company.
In contrast, IT people often think they are the only ones who know how to help redesign OT departments, supporting systems that allow for the benefits of AI, the internet of things, and other digital technologies. Real cooperation is important, but the challenges of new technologies and connectivity to startups raise questions about finance, leadership, and leadership.
Bala Arunachalam, a major oil and gas producer for more than 30 years, says the unique nature of the industry is a major factor. “This industry is a well-known business. For them to go to the gym, to take advantage of the opportunity that lies ahead of them, is difficult. ”
As a commodity, whether in the factory or outside the field, it is converted through the online technology of things; such as operations, data storage, and data processing moving to the cloud; and as employees cling to their home offices for more than a year from the epidemic, any apparent boundaries between OT and the entire business collapse. “The problem is that we have to bring the data together across all these borders,” Cranmer said. The biggest obstacles, he says, are social and cultural practices. “The technical side is more easily overcome than the human side.”
The good news is that there are guidelines that organizations can follow to achieve IT / OT integration that is critical to initiating digital transformation.
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