The Web of the World Starts with Marrying IT and OT

Feb 21, 2014
Sogeti Labs

In the IT Glossary of research firm Gartner, OT or Operational Technology – the digital control part of physical production and engineering – is loosely defined as “hardware and software that detects or causes a change through the direct monitoring and/or control of physical devices, processes and events in the enterprise.” An example is Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems monitoring the performance of water or energy utility assets. The following picture illustrates the traditional divide between “corporate” IT and “shop floor or plant” OT:

ITvsOTSource: Convergence, alignment and integration of Operational and Information Technologies in organizations with Engineering Asset Management functions, University of South Australia, 2013 http://sim.unisa.edu.au/OTandIT.pdf

In blunt blue and white collar terms: OT refers to factory operations and IT to administrative work, or the plant and the office. Administration focuses on regulatory compliance, bean counting, and audit preparedness while operations is tasked with minimizing time, budget, resources, and whatever it takes to get the production or engineering job done in the context of optimized lifecycle management.

The vision is a Web of the World
IT-ready machines are one of today’s various Internet of Things (IoT) flavors. For instance, Industrial, Energy and Health IoT solutions and applications on the OT side amicably interface on the IT side with Consumer IoT ones like NEST and Google Glass, with Medical IoT ones like Microsoft HeathVault, with Connected Cars in the Automotive IoT ecosystem, or with the IoT and Services, as envisioned by Bosch.

All in all, a converging cyber-physical Systems of Systems future is dawning that already has been dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Germany has even launched a dedicated Industry 4.0 program:

industry4.0

Viewed from the perspective of Internet as the 21th century’s transformational force we see the following situation:

IoTservices

The Internet is all about hyperlinking or disruptively connecting the dots: one after another and industry by industry. After the Pages Web of Connected Documents, the Business Web of Organizations and the Social Web of People, aka Web 2.0, we are now entering the phase of connecting everything else: things, cars, services, production, delivery, events – you name it. It’s the Web of the World according to Microsoft Chief Architect Marc Davis.

Starting to integrate IT and OT: some recommendations and succes factors (University of South Australia, 2013)

Recommendations          
1 – Organizations should plan for convergence when external factors such as a corporate vision and consolidated industry standards are in place. Organizations should prepare by analysing business needs and objectives, plan including research available options and develop a convergence strategy. The vendors role includes selling a vision of convergence to organization.

2 – Organizations should move to convergence when there is consensus between business and IT functions within an organization. Convergence is established when vendors provide hardware which is IP addressable and has the same chips and routers as provided in other parts of the organization. At this point Engineering and IT should provide input into application development.

3 – Organizations should move from convergence to alignment when the hardware is in place but applications and information are disparate. Alignment is established when architectures are aligned. These tasks are undertaken by Engineering and IT with advice provided by vendors.

4 – Organizations should move from alignment to integration when market competition and need for cost savings arises. Integration is characterized by enterprise wide data exchange. These tasks are undertaken by Engineering and IT with advice provided by vendors.

Success factors
1 – Operational (such as data exchange for maintenance decisions) not business imperatives (such as legal, financial or reputational risks; alignment for management decisions & security concerns) drive convergence, alignment and integration activities.

2 – Information Governance does not facilitate convergence, alignment and integration activities. The need for governance of information by operational areas of the organization drives the activities to be undertaken.

3 – The vendors role is to dictate and provide IT based hardware and systems. Engineering and Information Management areas of organizations provide input into systems development by vendors and IT and Engineering manage vendors.

4 – Engineers shouldn’t be responsible for converging, aligning and integrating OT and IT. This should be a combined IT and Engineering or just IT responsibility.

5 – Hardware is already converged to IT standards upon provision to organization by vendor. The organizations challenge is to integrate the data as OT and IT information structures are often different.

 

About the author

SogetiLabs gathers distinguished technology leaders from around the Sogeti world. It is an initiative explaining not how IT works, but what IT means for business.

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