The business use case is always the starting point. If there is one that you believe justifies the investment, choosing software and cloud services is the easy part. With AWS, Azure, and open source libraries, along with applications from SAP, ServiceNow and Microsoft, this is a case of “you shop”.
But what is often less clear is whether the current enterprise architecture will support that use case. In Fujitsu’s opinion, it all starts on the factory floor. If your OT data is bad, the business data in your IT systems will be even worse.
Many data issues may need to be resolved. Is shared data required and is it available or not? What integration or sensor would be critical? Is the existing technology base still supported? And can the data it generates be matched for cloud migration or machine learning models – to capture just two possibilities?
It’s also important to check if you have or can get the right resources – in the sense of the skills and abilities to operate, support and maintain the new architecture.
However, the most challenging part of this equation, in my experience, is to get a consensus that the status quo needs to change. Budget is a factor. Many people understand the “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” approach. And so is the culture. The OT and IT factory has been operating in two different worlds so far, with different skill sets, risk appetite, refresh cycles, even different generations.
That is also changing. For many reasons, the boundaries between OT and IT are unraveling. Convergence is driven by a long list of factors – increased global competition, digitalization, disintermediation, generation change, mass -customization, to name a few. As a result, factories are opening up to the digital world.
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