OT/IT CONVERGENCE
WHERE TECHNOLOGY CONVERGENCE LEADS ORGANISATIONS MUST FOLLOW There appears to be agreement among automation vendors that Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) convergence is now becoming a reality across all industrial sectors. Suzanne Gill finds out more about the impact that this will have on the role of the control engineer.
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t would appear that not only is OT/IT convergence becoming a reality, but that it is a process that has been underway for some time, led by technology convergence – albeit it is happening at varying rates, depending on the way in which a company is addressing the digital transformation of its business and how far along the Industry 4.0 journey it is. Mike Loughran, chief technology officer at Rockwell Automation, is certain that OT/IT convergence is happening across industry because Rockwell is seeing many more companies with advanced connected enterprise approaches who are starting
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May 2020
to unlock the benefits of Industry 4.0. “This is happening as a result of either increased cooperation between OT/IT, or due to the rise of the hybrid OT/IT workforce. Whichever way we look at things, the definition and function of both roles in the industrial setting is becoming looser as the lifeblood of industry 4.0 – data – needs to move more easily through the business and plant levels to enable efficiency and productivity gains.” Loughran says that the OT/IT convergence journey will be different for each company, depending on their existing plant, resources and desired outcomes. But he says that
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support is available for all – training and benchmarking such as the Cisco Certified Network Associated (CCNA) designation – to build organisational competency and to improve workforce readiness as this convergence advances. “In a way, this shows that IT-style certification is becoming an important marker for OT personnel in the converged world of the connected enterprise – an interesting proof point that the two worlds are indeed coming together,” he said.
Rapid learning curves Matthew Wells, vice president of Digital Product Management at GE Digital,
Control Engineering Europe
