IT/OT Convergence on the Shop Floor
The Deloitte Operational Technology Service Management solution
Digital transformation has created a diverse landscape of production assets and management systems in many production sites. To make sure you adopt an efficient and effective strategy to maintain and operate those assets while also minimizing security risks, the best option is to professionalize shop floor operations with a central technology platform. Deloitte has developed a solution for IT/OT convergence on the shop floor based on the ServiceNow platform. The Deloitte Operational Technology Service Management (OTSM) solution provides standardized, transparent, and efficient workflows in the digital factory.
Deloitte Managed Shopfloor OTSM Solution
We are seeing more and more IT applications on the shop floor these days, thanks to the proliferation of digital solutions and fully-automated production lines. As a result, many companies have set themselves a medium-term target of converging their information technology with their operational technology on the shop floor through vertical and horizontal integration.
This will allow companies to track products along the entire production process and to leverage production data at all levels of the system hierarchy. By centralizing the management of all services on the shop floor, we can reduce complexity and invest those resources currently lost on manual processes in activities that add value.
Managed OTSM Shopfloor Solution
Current challenges of digital transformation: the shop floor in flux
Industry 4.0 solutions have enabled us to dramatically increase efficiency, automating processes and cutting costs in the process. On the other hand, the many operations and systems involved in modern-day production present serious challenges for OT (i.e., operating technology on the shop floor):
- Complexity of IT & OT: The more IT is deployed on the shop floor, the more complex the OT becomes – a growing number of physical operations within today’s production processes are software-controlled.
- Lack of standards: Interoperability is often difficult, because standardized OT solutions are rare and custom solutions are high-risk.
- Increased security risks: Using shadow IT in production often creates vulnerabilities and thus to high costs in the event of production downtimes.
- Conflicting cultures: The conflicting goals and cultures of IT and OT stakeholders as well as organizational barriers stop CIOs from securing buy-in within the organization and implementing successful Industry 4.0 initiatives.
Companies are aware of this, but the solutions they pursue are often inefficient and short-sighted. Many choose custom solutions that end up adding more complexity to an already very complex production landscape. What we are missing to date is a real-world approach to asset management that is efficient, transparent, standardized, and user-friendly.
Every stakeholder has a different agenda: CIOs want IT solutions that offer strategic, continuous improvement of production processes. Managers on the shop floor want processes that are highly efficient to reduce failure and scrap rates to a minimum while also delivering top quality. And the operators on the shop floor just want to do their jobs without extra, rather vague responsibilities and long downtimes for maintenance.
So, how can we solve these challenges while also addressing the concerns of every stakeholder involved? The IT departments of the past faced similar challenges and ultimately succeeded in mastering them thanks to Information Technology Service Management (ITSM).
The Deloitte Operational Technology Service Management solution
The basic steps in implementing our OTSM solution are:
- First, capturing all shop floor assets in one central ServiceNow database (CMDB = Configuration Management Database). It is important to set up the CMDB so that the OT infrastructure is available globally across all plants as well as locally within a specific plant.
- Second, develop a Target Operating Model (TOM) as the structural foundation for the OTSM solution.
- Third, define the security operations processes
- And fourth, go live with the platform and its end-to-end service package for all shop floor assets.
Another relevant factor for OTSM is the data model: Every asset is created in the centralized database as a digital twin, which enables the system to capture, aggregate and analyze the operational data and, as a result, increase process efficiency in the long run.
Deloitte Manufacturing Solutions
The benefits of the Deloitte OTSM solution at a glance
The OTSM solution provides centralized management of OT services that is transparent and automated, bringing standardization and efficiency to an increasingly complex operational environment. There are three direct benefits:
- Improved transparency in all production services and therefore better decision making, as every process is recorded in the central OTSM platform.
- High level of standardization and therefore a less complex and less error-prone process, because the OTSM solution defines global standards and supports an efficient global roll-out of selected solutions.
- Greater efficiency through clear-cut responsibilities and well-defined workflows.
Based on our experience in numerous projects, we have identified other areas of optimization that come with the use of a centralized OTSM platform. We were able to increase relevant KPIs in the areas of asset efficiency, quality as well as safety and sustainability, while also reducing costs and mitigating production risks. In the end, visualizing all assets on a centralized OTSM platform is not only attractive from the perspective of administrators and users, but also boosts business performance.
OT/IT convergence in the Smart Factory network
In the Smart Factory Dusseldorf, our showroom for innovative Industry 4.0 use cases, we have fully integrated Deloitte's own assets in the OTSM solution. This allows us to speak to our clients’ challenges with first-hand experience. The OTSM solution also works will with our approach to managing analog shop floor processes.
Deloitte has deep expertise in the areas of manufacturing, technology and innovative ecosystems (e.g., the Connected Supply Chain solution), which makes us the right partner for production companies looking to rise to the digital transformation challenge.
The path to IT/OT convergence
At this point, the questions facing production managers are: Where do we start to move toward our goal of IT/OT convergence? Can we implement the OTSM solution in our existing systems architecture (e.g., ERP, MES)? Our ServiceNow and smart manufacturing experts will be happy to work with you to develop a personalized roadmap to your own smart factory: from inventorying the assets of every plant to full process orchestration and the final go-live of your customized OTSM solution. To start the journey, Deloitte offers workshops on-site at our Smart Factory, where we can discuss all of the options for implementing OTSM.
Our experts look forward to advising you on your journey – and welcoming you to the Smart Factory in Dusseldorf.
Weitere Inhalte
Why not apply the tried-and-true principles of ITSM to OT and develop an Operational Technology Service Management (OTSM) approach? This is precisely what Deloitte has done, taking the out-of-the-box ServiceNow system to create an OTSM solution that provides centralized management of all shop floor services.
Dr. Harald Proff, Partner & Global Automotive Sector Lead