The importance of operational technology in the built environment you operate in

MANAGING OPERATIONAL RISKS THROUGH SILOS

// Hanna Pikkusaari

In an average 50.000m 2 office building there may be tens of thousands of sensors and other IoT devices and maybe dozens of different management and control systems in a smart or notso-smart building environment. Only the fire alarm system may have dependencies to several networks or network segments. And still the procurement process is usually not as meticulous and target-oriented as in IT sourcing.

Operational Technology (OT) has evolved in the shades. When it comes to the built environment only, it’s an extremely complicated environment running the heart and soul of a building and providing opportunities for wider cooperation - the smart cities. But before we can get there and be a part of the ecosystem, we have to become aware that OT is actually an enabler for IT and for the whole business - any business.

The unseen problem in the built environment is that in a construction project the life cycle management is often forgotten in the purchase process and the dependencies are not understood - not even considered. The future is not taken into consideration when the investors only purchase for a construction project - even though they would consider and follow the carbon neutrality ambitions. And what does this cause? It causes trouble for the project and for the life cycle management. When you don’t have an array of specialists looking after all the crazy amount of dependencies and requirements, you can’t succeed without a huge bucket of luck when ramping up and starting to use all the important OT (operational technology) and services almost at the same time. And after the project, when you didn’t have someone setting the requirements for the life cycle management before purchasing the complicated systems and the network environments, you get only repair debt on the day one. And when you don’t have the information and cybersecurity (ICS) specialist on board, you get a swaying house of cards.

I don’t think there is such a thing as a smart building. Not yet. Even the Smart Readiness Indicator for Buildings (SRI) doesn’t direct to actual measures. You get what you measure but you don’t get a smart building following those guidelines. It’s important to notice that the concept of SRI is about readiness. But when introducing enterprise architecture (EA) and committing the construction project and the life cycle management to follow an EA framework spiced up with SRI, that’s when you are close to the goal.

In an IT environment an ICS audit process can be challenging but doable. The focus is usually clear and it delivers an understandable documentation of the as-is situation and a task list to proceed by. But in the OT (operational technology) environment if you perform an ICS audit just before the launch to find and fix last minute defects, it’s way too late. I would like to pose a question to everyone near or inside the construction and lifecycle management of the built environment: How do you take over this challenge? I have learned that we have to understand the dependencies and the consequences of the processes and we have to understand the customers’ needs and encourage them to take over the topic. And I have also learned that it’s not about single decision makers but the whole industry to change it’s perspective, ambitions and goals. We have to find square one and build the future with stronger knowhow and unified targets.

So, to sum up the previous, leading and managing operational technology is all about risk management. It’s about the power, ability and courage to make cross-functional decisions impacting all the strong built silos. And it changes the starting position of a complex project. It requires a totally new perspective and new knowhow in the industry where IT and OT are going to follow the same path and learning from each other. OT (operational technology) is the enabler for any business and that’s why the goals should be set and the risks should be managed by the business. The architecture is complex and the dependencies are strong and some of them critical. That’s why visible and understandable OT is better than hidden and secret.

Hanna Pikkusaari

Smart Technology Advisor, Speaker and Educator, Osaango Ltd. 

Hanna has more than fifteen years of experience in information and operational technology related business process and service development. Hanna’s most recent responsibilities include operational and property technology (OT and PropTech) and IoT related change program leadership, information and cyber security, continuity, and enterprise architecture in one of Finland’s biggest retail companies and a significant property owner and user, K Group. Before leaping from IT service development to OT and PropTech Hanna oversaw implementation projects from machine learning and serverless big data environments to marketing automation, RFID, and many things in between. Hanna has a Diploma in Leadership, BBA in IT and university studies from University of Helsinki in theoretical and applied physics and mathematics. 

Osaango Ltd. has been listed as one of the key players in the global API management market forecast 2020-2025 by Market Data Forecast.