Get IT and OT working as one system.
Plant systems and corporate systems now sit on connected networks, but they are run by separate teams using different tools and standards. We design the architecture and security model for the boundary between them, and work with both teams on how it is operated day to day.
How the two environments differ.
IT organizations are built around data and change: cloud services, integration, and security patched on a schedule. OT organizations are built around the physical plant: PLCs, SCADA, historians, safety systems, and equipment expected to run for years without interruption. Both sets of practices make sense for what each side owns. Once the networks are connected, a patch window that is routine for IT can stop a line, and a controller left unpatched to protect uptime becomes an exposure for the rest of the company.
Older controllers and HMIs were specified before plant networks reached corporate systems, and many have no authentication, limited logging, and no supported patch path.
When a network change takes down a line, the two teams work the problem separately, with different monitoring tools and different names for the same equipment, which lengthens time to root cause.
Analytics and IoT programs are funded on the assumption that plant data is available. In practice it sits in historians and local databases that were never connected to anything outside the site.
What the work involves.
Three things have to be settled: how the networks are designed, how the boundary is secured, and how the two teams operate it. We take them in that order, because the network design determines what the security model can enforce, and both determine what the teams have to agree on.
We inventory the OT estate (controllers, SCADA, historians) and the network between plant and corporate. The output is a record of the current data paths, the points where plant data stops short of corporate systems, and the gaps that carry security or uptime risk.
We segment the networks, stand up an industrial DMZ, and set up edge collection that moves plant data into the governed data layer the rest of the business uses. The work is staged around production schedules so lines keep running.
We work alongside both groups: controls engineers pick up network monitoring and segmentation, and IT engineers learn how safety systems and production schedules constrain what can be changed and when. We set shared metrics, write one incident-response procedure covering both environments, and assign ownership of the boundary before we leave.
Plant data lands in the operating layer described in our data foundation, the same governed layer reporting, planning, and models use.
What changes at the plant.
The two teams work an incident on one call rather than through separate escalation chains. We track time to root cause and downtime per incident.
Traffic between corporate and plant networks runs through a defined path that is monitored and logged, and patch and change windows are scheduled against the production calendar.
Predictive maintenance, quality analytics, and digital twin work can draw on machine and process data from the site instead of waiting on a manual extract.
Start with one site.
Pick one plant. We'll map the IT/OT boundary, document the gaps that carry the most risk, and connect its data to the layer the rest of the business uses.