Bridging the IT/OT Divide
Not long ago, the average manufacturing company had two separate worlds under one roof: the carpeted realm of Information Technology (IT) and the concrete jungle of Operational Technology (OT). The IT crowd managed business systems, databases, and networks in the office, while the OT folks ran the machines, assembly lines, and control systems on the factory floor. These domains rarely mingled – each might as well have been on a different planet (or at least a different floor). In fact, a plant manager and a CIO might only cross paths during an emergency or maybe the annual company picnic. Why were IT and OT historically so isolated from each other? And why is everyone now buzzing about IT/OT convergence as if it’s the next big thing since sliced bread (or since the advent of the assembly line)?
A Tale of Two Tech Domains: Why IT and OT Grew Up Apart
To understand the convergence, we first need to appreciate the divergence. Historically, IT and OT have had very different goals and cultures. IT has been all about information – storing it, processing it, securing it, and using it to run the business. Think of things like payroll systems, customer databases, email servers, and now cloud computing. OT, on the other hand, is all about the physical operations – keeping the production lines moving, the robots welding, the conveyor belts rolling, and the products coming out the door. If IT is the brain of the organization, OT is the muscle.
The Difference between IT and OT
Because of these different priorities, IT and OT developed in silos. Each solved different problems and used technologies suited to their own needs. . A classic way to describe the split is by their focus on the famous “CIA” triad (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability) – except each side orders those letters differently. Traditional IT puts a premium on Confidentiality and data integrity (you don’t want customer or finance data leaking), while availability (uptime) is important but historically could tolerate some downtime for maintenance or upgrades. OT flips that around: the production line’s Availability and safety are paramount, integrity of control signals is crucial, and confidentiality is a distant third. In other words, IT worries about data breaches, while OT worries about a machine shutdown costing $100,000+ per hour. These conflicting priorities made collaboration difficult for a long time.
Moreover, the technologies and networks they used were different. Older OT systems were often proprietary and isolated. Many industrial control systems in decades past weren’t networked at all – they ran on islands of automation. As one source put it, most control devices were “each electronic at some level, but not readily able to communicate or share information,” leading to silos of specialized devices on the factory floor. Machines were operated by engineers on-site, and data (if collected) was logged locally or even on paper. Meanwhile, corporate IT was building enterprise networks and hooking up PCs – a very different environment.
This separation was by design as well as necessity. Early on, no one wanted a risky connection between the wild west of the internet/office network and the sensitive plant operations. If a corporate spreadsheet got a virus, it was a headache; if a PLC (programmable logic controller) running a furnace got compromised or crashed, it was a safety emergency. So, companies literally built walls (sometimes literally, sometimes just firewall rules) to keep IT and OT apart.
Organizationally, IT and OT reported up different chains of command. The CIO (Chief Information Officer) or IT Director handled all things computing, while the VP of Operations or plant managers handled the machinery and automation. They had separate teams, budgets, and vocabularies. (The IT team talks in terms of servers, packets, and SQL, while OT folks discuss pumps, PLCs, and SCADA.) Not only did they sit in different buildings sometimes – they spoke different languages, so to speak.
All these historical factors explain why, for decades, IT and OT were like estranged siblings – each doing their own thing, barely speaking, and maybe a bit suspicious of each other. IT saw OT as that antiquated shop with old computers running Windows XP and unpatched systems. OT saw IT as those folks who reboot things too often and “don’t understand what downtime means to us.” The cultural divide was (and in many firms still is) real.
According to The Manufacturer's IT & OT Convergence Research Report - Just 23% of manufacturers have achieved more than a basic level of IT and OT convergence. In addition:
77% have at least 50% cloud-based infrastructure
49% basic integration with supply vendors
25% still choose to air gap plant operations from enterprise IT
17% fully integrated supply and production transparency
6% fully integrated and with an understanding of the financial impact
2% unsure
The Winds of Change: Why IT and OT Are Converging Now
How big is the IT/OT market?
The convergence of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) in manufacturing isn’t a trend—it’s a necessity. Technology has evolved, competitive pressure has intensified, and the wall between digital and physical operations has started to crumble. What was once a siloed relationship is now becoming a strategic partnership. Here are five key reasons why IT/OT convergence is accelerating:
Industry 4.0 and IoT are breaking barriers: With the rise of cheap sensors, edge devices, and industrial IoT, factory machines can now connect, communicate, and be controlled in real time. This connectivity allows IT systems to “see” what’s happening on the shop floor and act on it.
Data is the new competitive edge: Siloed data means missed opportunities. By combining IT data (like ERP, sales, and supply chain) with OT data (like machine logs and production metrics), companies unlock powerful analytics for predictive maintenance, real-time optimization, and demand forecasting.
Efficiency and agility are non-negotiable: In today’s market, manufacturers need to respond faster to changes. Integrated IT/OT systems enable automated responses, from production adjustments to procurement alerts, helping reduce downtime and improve flexibility.
Technology convergence lowers the barriers: OT systems increasingly use IT-standard tools like Ethernet, APIs, and virtualization. As both domains adopt similar technologies, integration becomes not only feasible but expected.
Customer expectations are rising: Whether it’s traceability, customization, or speed, customers demand more visibility and responsiveness. IT/OT convergence enables the real-time, end-to-end data flow needed to deliver on those expectations.
Key Areas of IT/OT Convergence
When people talk about IT/OT convergence, they often treat it as one big shift—but in reality, many things are converging all at once. Systems, data, tools, workflows, and even mindsets are being pulled together from previously separate worlds. To make sense of it all, I like to break it down into four primary buckets that represent the major domains where convergence happens.
Think of these as the four major areas of consideration when evaluating or planning IT/OT convergence: the physical technologies, the software applications, the underlying data, and the operational processes. Each one plays a critical role—and each comes with its own challenges, benefits, and stakeholders. By understanding these distinct yet interconnected layers, organizations can better map out their convergence journey with clarity and purpose.
Hardware Convergence in Manufacturing
Hardware convergence involves integrating operational technology (OT) devices and systems with information technology (IT) infrastructure through the addition of network connectivity. This convergence allows OT devices such as PLCs, sensors, controllers, and even actuators used in manufacturing processes to communicate directly with IT systems. It enables centralized monitoring, control, and data acquisition across the manufacturing environment. Hardware convergence aims to enhance operational efficiency, reduce downtime, and enable real-time decision-making by leveraging IT capabilities to manage and optimize OT assets.
Application/Software Convergence in Manufacturing
Application/software convergence refers to the integration of enterprise software systems, typically used in IT environments (such as ERP, CRM, and PLM), with operational technology systems (such as MES and SCADA) used in manufacturing. This convergence enables seamless data flow and interoperability between IT and OT systems, facilitating synchronized business and operational processes. It enhances visibility, efficiency, and responsiveness by ensuring that critical data from manufacturing operations is integrated into broader business systems, enabling informed decision-making and adaptive management of production processes.
Data Convergence in Manufacturing: Description
Data convergence involves consolidating and integrating data from IT and OT systems into a unified data architecture. It aims to harmonize diverse data sources, including customer data, market trends, production metrics, and equipment performance data. By integrating these data streams, organizations gain comprehensive insights into both business operations and manufacturing processes. Data convergence supports advanced analytics, predictive maintenance, and proactive decision-making, driving operational improvements, cost efficiencies, and competitive advantage in manufacturing.
Process/Workflow Convergence in Manufacturing
Process/workflow convergence focuses on aligning and integrating IT-driven business processes with OT-driven operational workflows within the manufacturing environment. This convergence aims to streamline and optimize end-to-end processes, from order fulfillment and production scheduling to inventory management and quality control. It ensures that activities across the manufacturing value chain are synchronized, automated, and managed cohesively. Process/workflow convergence enhances agility, scalability, and responsiveness by enabling organizations to adapt quickly to market changes, optimize resource allocation, and meet customer demands effectively.
Approaches to IT/OT Convergence
While the areas of IT/OT convergence (hardware, software, data, and workflow) describe what is being connected and aligned, it’s just as important to consider how companies go about making that convergence happen. The approach an organization takes often reveals more about its culture, leadership philosophy, and operational maturity than any technical diagram ever could.
There are countless ways companies approach IT/OT convergence—this isn’t a comprehensive list. Instead, what follows is an attempt to highlight some of the most distinct and commonly observed styles that represent very different philosophies in how organizations attempt to bridge (or avoid bridging) the gap between IT and OT.
These four models don’t capture every nuance or hybrid variation out there. In fact, many companies operate in the gray areas between them—or shift from one to another as they mature, restructure, or react to new leadership and external pressures. You might see one approach at headquarters and another entirely at a local plant. You might even see two of them playing out in the same building, led by different teams.
But despite all the variations, these examples capture the spectrum of strategic intent—from resistance to collaboration, from chaos to cohesion. They help make visible the underlying posture an organization takes toward convergence: is it protective, dominant, disorganized, or cooperative?
So, think of these not as rigid categories but as useful archetypes. Each tells a story about how IT and OT teams relate, how decisions are made, and how much value the organization is likely to extract from its digital initiatives. Let’s explore them, starting with the least integrated and moving toward the most collaborative.
“Building a Wall”: The Siloed Approach
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just a lack of convergence—it’s the anti-convergence approach. If IT/OT convergence is about building bridges, this model is about pouring concrete to build a moat… and then pulling up the drawbridge just in case. We hope no one reading this falls into this category—but chances are, some companies are unknowingly here, thanks to legacy policies, outdated org charts, or well-intentioned incentives that end up protecting turf instead of driving collaboration.
In this model, the mindset is: “IT does its thing, OT does its thing, and let’s keep a wall (or at least a firewall) between them.” Sometimes that wall is literal—air-gapped networks, badge-restricted server rooms, or policies that make data sharing feel like espionage. Other times, it’s purely cultural: teams don’t meet, don’t talk, and definitely don’t collaborate unless forced to (usually by something breaking).
The logic is often defensive: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” say OT leaders worried about IT pushing out a patch that crashes the line. Meanwhile, IT may quietly believe OT is a wild west of unpatched systems, mysterious protocols, and spreadsheets saved on someone’s desktop named “FINAL_FINAL_REALv2.xlsx.”
Think of this like two neighbors with a tall fence between their houses – they hardly know each other, but at least they’re not fighting. In a manufacturing context, the wall approach might manifest as separate networks that only meet at a tightly controlled data diode or a once-a-week batch file transfer. The IT and OT teams have distinct goals and rarely meet; they might even sit in separate buildings entirely.
“IT Takeover”: One Side to Rule Them All
In some organizations, the pendulum swings the other way – IT extends its empire to encompass OT. The thinking here is, “We need convergence? Fine, the IT department will just take over responsibility for all those industrial systems too.” In practice, this might mean the CIO or IT managers start managing plant floor technology, applying standard IT policies to OT, and perhaps even the OT staff begin reporting into IT. You could call it a merger by acquisition, and IT is the acquirer.
Why would this happen? Often, it’s driven by concerns like cybersecurity or standardization. The company leadership might feel that the OT environment has to be brought up to modern security standards (something IT knows well), or that having two tech teams is redundant and costly, so they attempt to consolidate. Sometimes it’s pushed by the fact that newer OT systems are more IT-like (e.g. runs on Windows or Linux), so IT says “hey, we manage servers, we can manage those PLC servers too.” There might even be a notion that OT folks should focus on engineering and let IT handle all computing aspects.
This approach is tricky. On paper, it offers some benefits of unification – one group to manage all technology, possibly more consistent practices, and clear authority. But it can backfire if done insensitively. The OT team typically possesses specialized domain knowledge (e.g. knowing that a certain production cell can’t just be rebooted at will, or that latency of 100ms might be unacceptable in a control loop – things an average IT professional might not realize without training). If IT sweeps in with an attitude of “we know tech, we’ll handle it” and doesn’t respect the nuances of OT, it can create huge culture clashes and morale issues. OT staff may feel devalued or that their safety and reliability concerns are being steamrolled by IT policies. Picture a scenario where corporate IT pushes an antivirus update that forces a system reboot during a continuous manufacturing process – the results can range from expensive to downright dangerous. That’s the nightmare scenario OT people fear from an IT takeover.
“Chaos Model”: Throwing Requirements over the Fence
This approach is, unfortunately, quite common during the awkward teenage years of IT/OT convergence. Neither IT nor OT is fully in charge, there’s no integrated strategy, and what you get is a bit of a mess. In the Chaos Model, the two sides do recognize they need to work together somehow (so there’s no solid wall), but they haven’t established a clear working relationship or governance. The result is ad-hoc, project-by-project integration where each team might be “lobbing requests over the fence” at the other without really understanding the impact.
For example, the OT team might decide “We need a new analytics app to crunch our sensor data” and they toss this over to IT to “make it happen.” IT, not fully aware of the OT context, might spin something up that doesn’t quite meet the need or misses some critical requirement (like real-time processing or ruggedized hardware considerations). Conversely, IT might roll out a new corporate network architecture and tell OT at the last minute, “Hey, put your machines on this new VLAN and by the way we’re closing these old ports” – leaving OT scrambling because some ancient controller communicates on that “old port” and now it’s cut off. It’s a lot of reactive firefighting, and both teams can feel like the other is a source of headaches.
In the chaos scenario, projects often suffer delays or failures because of poor coordination. Each group has its own budget and agenda, and they only come together when forced, often under tight timelines. It’s not that the teams are intentionally adversarial; it’s more like they are speaking different languages and there’s no translator or adult in the room to mediate. The cultural divide remains, and there might be sporadic turf skirmishes – e.g., arguments over who “owns” a certain system (is a manufacturing quality database an IT responsibility or an OT responsibility? Who handles the cloud IoT platform – the folks who know cloud or the folks who know machines?). Without clear answers, you get confusion.
One might joke that this is the “blame game” model – if something goes wrong, each side blames the other’s lack of understanding. A software update breaks a production system? OT says IT deployed without checking properly; IT says OT refused to follow standard procedures. A new machine installation gets delayed? OT says IT didn’t provide network drops in time; IT says OT gave requirements at the last minute. You get the picture. It’s chaos not because anyone’s slacking off, but because there’s no cohesive game plan.
“Integrated Team”: Convergence through Collaboration
This is the goal state – the sweet spot where IT and OT function not as adversaries or strangers, but as partners, or truly as a single integrated team. In this approach, the organization establishes a convergence team or program that intentionally includes both IT and OT personnel (and often, it has executive sponsorship from both sides as well). Rather than one side dominating, it’s a cross-functional effort. Think of it as forming a special task force combining the strengths of both departments to drive Industry 4.0 and other digital initiatives.
How does this look in practice? Often, companies will create a governance structure like an IT/OT council or a Center of Excellence for digital manufacturing. Key leaders from IT and OT co-chair it or otherwise share leadership. Some firms appoint a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or similar role to oversee convergence – not to replace the CIO or plant managers, but to coordinate between them. The integrated team sets common goals and metrics. For instance, instead of IT having a KPI of “99.9% network uptime” and OT having a KPI of “maximize production throughput,” the combined team might have a joint KPI of overall equipment effectiveness with cybersecurity, or a balanced scorecard that includes uptime, quality, and security together. In fact, aligning KPIs is highlighted as critical: both groups should track shared performance indicators so that they “have joint responsibility to meet these objectives,” rather than pulling in different directions. If everyone’s measured by the same yardstick (say, factory output and data availability), you better believe they’ll work more seamlessly together.
Culturally, an integrated approach emphasizes mutual respect and understanding. Concretely, this might mean IT folks spending time on the plant floor to learn the ropes (maybe even don a hard hat and shadow an OT engineer for a day), and OT folks participating in IT architecture meetings or training to understand cybersecurity or data management. Some companies even do job rotations or co-location of staff (e.g., embed an IT security analyst in the production team and vice versa for a period). When teams start to see things from each other’s perspective, the “us vs. them” mentality fades.
Strategically, the integrated team approach often comes as part of a broader Industry 4.0 or digital transformation strategy. The company might define a roadmap that includes specific convergence projects (like “implement an integrated MES-ERP system by Q4” or “create a unified data lake for all manufacturing data”). Because it’s cross-functional, planning is done jointly: requirements are discussed with both IT and OT considerations at the table from day one. There’s typically a clear governance – roles are defined so nothing falls through the cracks. For example, there might be a rule that any new OT system procurement must involve IT for vetting network/security, and any new IT analytics project involving production data must involve OT input. It’s not bureaucracy for its own sake, it’s to ensure collaboration by design.
There are real-world examples where integrated approaches yielded big wins. For instance, one electronics manufacturing company cited by McKinsey overcame pilot project stagnation and scaled up to over $100 million in value by establishing joint IT/OT governance and teams. They harmonized their tech stack and got everyone on board with the changes, which made all the difference. Many manufacturers start seeing improvements like reduced downtime, higher productivity, and better product quality once their IT and OT experts are working side by side instead of in isolation.
Unclear Ownership and Funding
One of the biggest hurdles is the cultural divide between IT and OT departments. Historically, these teams have operated in silos, each with its own set of practices and technologies. Overcoming this divide requires a unified vision and a collaborative approach to strategy development. It's about creating a digital handshake that enables seamless data flow and insights across the organization. 25% of companies stated they did not know who is architecting their convergence strategies, or that ownership hasn’t been clear. Similarly, 29% of manufacturers are unsure or unclear about who is funding these initiatives. These statistics highlight the critical need for well-defined roles and responsibilities to ensure effective strategy development and execution. However, it’s encouraging to note that 31% are funding these initiatives from a central budget, highlighting its strategic importance.
However, the journey doesn’t stop at implementation. Continuous improvement and adaptation are key. As the global economy evolves, so too must the strategies that underpin manufacturing operations.
One Team, One Dream (and Lots of Data)
IT/OT convergence in manufacturing is often described in technical terms, but at its heart it’s about people and processes as much as wires and code. We began by looking at why IT and OT were separated – different goals, different technologies, a healthy dose of caution – and we’ve traveled through the forces that are now pulling them together, from IoT to the competitive need for speed and insight. We broke down convergence into hardware, software, data, and workflow integration, showing that it’s a multi-layered effort. And we’ve seen the spectrum of approaches companies take, from keeping a strict divide (the “wall”) to forging a collaborative coalition (the integrated team), with a few misadventures in between.
For manufacturing executives, CIOs, and operations VPs reading this, the message is clear: Convergence is not optional if you want to stay ahead – it’s a question of how you do it, not if. A pragmatic roadmap often involves moving away from silos or one-sided approaches and investing in building that integrated, cross-functional muscle in your organization. It means encouraging your server gurus and your plant gurus to actually sit together, perhaps literally in the same room, to design the future state of your operations. It means establishing common goals (so that, for example, both IT and OT know they win or lose together on uptime, quality, and efficiency metrics, rather than “my system vs your system”). It likely means some organizational change – maybe new roles like an OT cybersecurity specialist in IT, or an IT data analyst embedded at a plant. And it certainly means a cultural shift towards collaboration.
References:
The Manufacturer - IT & OT Convergence Research Report: Bridging the Gap Between the Enterprise and the Shop Floor: https://info.themanufacturer.com/it-ot-convergence-research-report-2022
McKinsey & Company - Converge IT and OT to turbocharge business operations’ scaling power, 2022: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/converge-it-and-ot-to-turbocharge-business-operations-scaling-power
