As we enter 2022, it’s important that organizations invest in cybersecurity for their operational technology (OT) systems. Why? One of the reasons is that Industry 4.0 can sometimes introduce more risk for OT. This is evident in several Industry 4.0 market trends.

For example, there’s digital twin infrastructure. That’s where you make a digital copy of your production facility or your machine. You can then simulate the stuff you want to do in the digital twin and optimize the environment based on that simulation.

The second thing is predictive maintenance. You are collecting a lot of data from your machine, and if the behavior of the machine of abrasions, temperatures, or whatever else is changing, you do maintenance windows before your machine gets broken. You interconnect your purchasing system down to the production and into the supply chain. So, if someone orders a car on your webpage in a specific configuration, it’s automatically integrated into the ERP system, ordering the right pieces from the right suppliers, and programing the production line exactly for the product so things are delivered on time.

The Reality of Realizing Industry 4.0

Truthfully, organizations can’t drive digital twin infrastructure, predictive maintenance, and other Industry 4.0 trends without making changes to their technology. First, devices in the production facility need a lot more functions. They need to be easier to address at access, and they need to be integrated into automation systems that can address or collect calls from it.

And then you even need more devices. You want to have sensor values, and you need devices that can transfer data between Information Technology (IT) and OT. You need to have more network devices. From there, you need to collect all this information in a way that provides meaning to OT and (Read more...)