IT and OT are growing together. Where are the biggest obstacles in practice today?

The most important factor for me is time. IT/OT convergence does not happen overnight, it is a process. And it still presents companies with a number of challenges: On the one hand, we have OT, which stands for stability and real-time capability, but is essentially based on classic electrical design. On the other hand, there is IT, which stands for flexibility and scalability based on modern software concepts. Bringing these two worlds together naturally leads to certain frictional losses.

There are also other typical challenges such as cyber security and data protection, a poor or incomplete data basis, as well as a shortage of skilled workers and the know-how gap among existing specialists. The differences in the profiles of employees at OT level and in IT are sometimes very large. As a result, there is a lack of awareness at field level of the benefits of IT concepts and vice versa. We still need to raise awareness here.

Germany is considered an Industry 4.0 pioneer. Are we still ahead in IT/OT convergence?

As with so many processes, Germany also has the problem with IT/OT convergence that we are too sluggish. We develop concepts, standardize and plan, but often take too long to implement them. We need to take action now and roll out the concepts across the board. After all, good concepts already exist. At SmartFactory-KL in particular, we have been working intensively in recent years on how companies can merge the IT and OT worlds and build their own smart factory. The result is our Open SmartFactory Architecture, which provides a clear orientation framework; in principle, a blueprint of how the smart factory works. Instead of monolithic systems, it relies on a modular principle based on open standards that enables flexible and scalable production IT. If companies follow our architecture, they can master IT/OT convergence.

In June, you are organizing the IT/OT Integration Summit together with INDUSTRIAL Production. What kind of impulses on IT/OT integration can participants expect?

The special thing about our joint conference is the focus on real projects from mechanical engineering and production. We want to present real, tried-and-tested integration approaches, not glossy demos with nothing behind them. In other words, we will look at real projects, discuss cross-manufacturer approaches and present our architecture, which companies can use to move towards the smart factory. Participants will experience how IT/OT integration actually works in practice.