Achieving business intelligence through IT/OT alignment in a smart factory is a balancing act. People, processes and technology must work in tandem to lead and support one another.
People
True alignment of IT and OT requires rebooting the company mindset, and it starts with management. Consider increasing knowledge-sharing and cross-training between the OT and IT departments, with a dedicated advocate for each. This advocate should be expected to maintain the inter-department relationship and take the lead on upskilling and reskilling the appropriate team members. This can lead to a better understanding of the other’s processes and pain points.
Management should also acknowledge the need for workforce alignment at every level. Employee engagement is critical to success; employees might need to be cross-trained in new tech and systems.
Process
To effectively integrate IT and OT, you need to establish KPIs that make sense for the organization. For example, objectives need to be established for production efficiencies that result from just-in-time manufacturing, if manufacturing execution and enterprise resource planning systems (MES and ERP) are integrated.
There are also cost benefits that are associated with IT/OT alignment that need to be measured. If the network has application prioritization capabilities made possible by software defined networking or 5G network slicing, there may be safety and reliability efficiencies to be gained.
Aligning IT and OT leads to integrated data from all assets on one central platform. Such a holistic look at processes can deliver new avenues for revenue or savings if you know where to look. Even gathering IIoT data after products are sold can deliver crucial intelligence that vendors might find useful. Knowing when an HVAC unit is about to fail, for example, means that technicians can repair or replace it before it impedes production, and give finance an opportunity to budget for it appropriately. Furthermore, OEMs can benefit financially by leveraging remote monitoring to maintain and service equipment before there are systems failures.
Likewise, effective communication and automation between inventory and sales can simplify their day-to-day processes. Having real time visibility across a manufacturer’s supply chain and their supplier’s/vendors supply chains, could prevent disruptions stemming from global pandemics, socio and geopolitical conflicts, weather, etc.
These are just a few examples that illustrate the impact a convergence of applications (such as MES, ERP, CRM, Cloud, WMS, and more) will have and what will ultimately deliver Industry 4.0 outcomes.
Technology
In order to achieve positive Industry 4.0 outcomes and unleash innovation from the shop floor to the corner office, IT and OT require advanced infrastructure that’s application-aware, reliable, secure and agile. Being able to adapt the key attributes of advanced networking – availability, uptime, scalability, latency, etc. – and match them with the business and operational needs is paramount to executing on Industry 4.0 use cases.
Take PdM (predictive maintenance) as an example. PdM uses equipment and machinery data to evaluate asset performance in real time and by predicting breakdowns, minimizes costly downtime. This critical application needs to be treated with a different priority than other applications to ensure optimal performance. Whether it’s QoS, bandwidth, latency or micro-segmentation to defend from cyber attacks, advanced infrastructure architecturally underpins the most critical of OT and the most sensitive of IT applications.
IT/OT convergence begins with people, culture and process, and it always ends with technology. And when that technology is underpinned by advanced networking like SDN and soon 5G, IIoT architectures and machine-to-cloud security to name a few, those Industry 4.0 outcomes will finally become reality.
Learn more about connecting the physical and digital worlds in manufacturing.