EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
HOW ARE CIOS WORKING TO LEVERAGE THE CONVERGENCE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ( IT ) AND OPERATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ( OT )?
Every day , the boundary between Information Technology ( IT ) and Operational Technology ( OT ) is dissolving , and these solutions are adopting Internet protocols to interact , integrating with the Industrial Internet of Things ( IIoT ).
As digital capabilities become more strategic and more complex alternative solutions become less and less viable , more companies are getting serious about eliminating these silos and converging the IT / OT operating model .
It is practically the final stage of a technological convergence in which various programming languages and multiple incompatible and proprietary platforms of traditional brands in the market are being replaced by models that are universal , adaptive and flexible to allow for the automation and robotization of industrial processes to be more economical and extendable to any production system .
According to McKinsey ’ s article The Convergence of IT and OT Powers Up the Scalability of Business Operations , some of the more specific challenges for convergence include :
• The need for manual translations between business and operational layers , often through spreadsheets
• Data that is not collected or that is fragmented in silos within IT and OT layers
• The lack of an integrated management execution system or multiple systems without interconnection
• Control and supervision layers without adequate interconnection , sensors or analytics , with minimal integration in adjacent process steps
Thus , the complexity of industrialization can be relieved by integration with ERP , CRM and other systems . McKinsey also points out several challenges and notes that “ as digital capabilities become more strategic and more complex alternative solutions become less and less viable , more companies are getting serious about eliminating these silos and converging the IT / OT operating model .”
According to the article , “ doing so promises to accelerate ongoing use cases , democratize access to data and technology across the value chain , launch new use cases that leverage native cloud capabilities and improve frontline decision-making through using data from both IT and OT systems .”
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