Natural resources companies have been digitizing for at least two decades and the result is many very successful tactical implementations that result in enterprise-wide systems fragmentation. Let’s take a modern mine as an example. Digitisation initiatives have been implemented very tactically, addressing a single problem and usually doing it very well. The success of these Operational Technology (OT) systems have been undeniable and modern mines have implemented at a rapid pace over the last decade and a half. The result is dozens of disparate systems each satisfying a specific need with little thought on “what’s next?”.
What’s next is – “How do we make business sense of all of the data these disparate OT systems are generating?” The answer to this question lies with the Information Technology (IT) department whose value lies with analysing data and presenting in a way to help executives make better business decisions. Vendor-led OT implementations are often proprietary; siloed data structures, incompatible communications protocols and closed reporting/management systems. The IT department not only inherits these systems but also is expected to incorporate them into the overall enterprise data strategy.
This is the reason you see the term “IT/OT Convergence” everywhere. A catchphrase which significantly undersells the expectation of a $25 billion market with an expected 9% CAGR to 2035. That expectation is: Provide unified visibility and control across the entire enterprise from the smallest sensor in the mine to the big iron servers in the cloud.
Unfortunately this is exacerbated by fundamental differences in IT and OT. As stated above IT is tasked with analysing and presenting data to inform better business decisions and OT is tasked with maximum production efficiency and uptime of the mine. In addition, IT is seen as a cost-center while OT is generally seen as a revenue generator. In reality, the inertia of the vendor-led OT implementations is an enormous hurdle for IT to overcome.
This all leads to the effect that for nearly 2 decades digitization intitiatives’ successes mean those systems are well-embedded into daily operations. Unfortunately new generations aren’t replacing the retiring generations who originally managed these systems. This talent scarcity is one of the drivers bringing these dozens of systems, who were never designed to work together, under one roof.
Recently I spoke with an IT Director of a copper mining company in Africa explicitly about this. A few years ago Executives launched a convergence initiative to bring disparate OT data into a common format and structure. Expected result would be a data-lake which could be used not only for a digital-twin in real-time but also to dive deep for trends which could reveal potential catastrophic issues before they happen. The Director and his department has worked on this for 5 years with a result of approximately 40% of the systems conforming to the new standards. In a few cases, vendors have implemented changes to conform but in most cases a lengthy and costly integration was required.
Currently the IT director spends a large amount of his precious budget on middleware development and procurement to bring the 60% under some sort of manageable structure. The systems integration work takes away from his team’s other duties such as network administration. The current network, as with many others, is growing beyond what the rest of his budget can manage. Unfortunately he recently had to blindly allocate some network ports to the OT team, saying
“I don’t have the staff or budget to manage how you use these ports, I’ll do my best but I can’t guarantee your machines will work as designed all the time.”
This simple act, born out of necessity means he is reluctantly abdicating responsibility to ensure network reliability and management of his own network hardware, meaning these systems OT is plugging into unmanaged ports will not be visible to reporting systems or digital twins. Inevitably another road bump on the mine’s journey to IT/OT convergence.
This is a prime example of connectivity in a mine being underutilised, not by apathy but rather lack of resources and vendor lock-in forcing IT departments to do work they shouldn’t be with budgets they don’t have.
This is where the modern mine CIO needs to step in. This job will be monumental and a multi-year journey which will require an executive board who has patience and a dedicated team of technologists who can execute the CIO’s strategy. Brutal conversations with the vendors and platform suppliers will be necessary to demand vendors conform to standards which will go long way ease the pain.
Decades of tactical digitization in mines has created fragmented systems sending siloed data to closed systems. All of the ingredients are there to realise IT/OT convergence: Technologies, Systems, Cloud, Network and Talent. The trick now is integration supported by executives that apply the right amount of resources.