Considerations

Convergence at the Speed of Change?

Removing roadblocks to IT/OT convergence

Consider these useful points as your organization transitions to Industry 4.0:

One size doesn’t fit all. Enterprise organizations fast-tracked investment and movement toward digital transformation in their corporate IT environments to address unprecedented challenges created by the pandemic. Many CIOs may be eager to make the same accelerated shift toward Industry 4.0 on their plant floors as well.

Instead, CIOs should assess if their own plants possess the organizational and technical readiness for a rapid industrial transformation. If not, they should follow a more measured, cautious timeline. In its research, “Alternative Organizational Models for IT/OT Alignment,” Gartner also states, “Organizations can take several paths to IT/OT alignment and integration.”

Avoiding the PoC trap. In the first and second Horizon Reports in our Edge series, we looked at why so many edge and IoT proofs of concept (PoCs) never tend to reach widespread deployment. Frequently, organizations lacked clearly defined business outcomes they hoped to gain from the technology.

For further clarity, consider posing these types of questions:

Do your OT team leaders really understand how the use of combined Industry 4.0 technologies (such as cloud services, gateways, and advanced analytics like AI and machine learning) will help them and their team members simplify tasks, be safer, or improve efficiency?
Do IT leaders working on these projects understand how much of the current OT processes will need to change?

These business value and risk discussions are fundamental to project success. They also offer an excellent rationale for bringing IT/OT leaders together to define a communally desired set of outcomes.