Within many manufacturing businesses, a contentious relationship exists between information technoIogy (IT) and operational technology (OT). Each sees the other’s work and objectives as a barrier to theirs, creating a zero-sum game that can make it difficult to move even the most promising initiatives beyond the concept stage.

In truth, IT and OT are highly interdependent of one another, with each working toward the same goal of empowering their company to operate in a smarter, faster, and more efficient manner. This is especially true today in the U.S. manufacturing sector, where global competition and regulatory pressures have forced these businesses to cut costs while keeping quality and productivity high.

Achieving such seemingly incompatible goals almost always requires technological innovation— which in turn requires bridging the gap between IT and OT, so that each team can fully understand one another and work together to do more with less.

Digital Transformation Hits Australia First

Geoff Nunan, an engineer who has spent much of his career on the IT side of manufacturing, saw this same need for innovation unfold 20 years ago in his native Australia, when an open trade policy forced Australian manufacturing companies to work smarter if they wanted to stay in business.

“Aussie manufacturers either had to cut costs or be more efficient to compete with Asia,” Nunan said. “The businesses that optimized how they collected, analyzed, and acted upon data generated across IT and operations thrived, while the ones that simply reduced overhead and did nothing else are gone.”

Meanwhile, U.S. consultancies continued to consolidate, producing the large firms of today that are rigid, risk-averse, and typically tied to a single software provider. These firms also tend to offshore talent to control costs, usually at the expense of skill level.

“As Australian manufacturers were embracing the digital transformation, the big-four consulting firms were taking American manufacturers in largely the opposite direction,” Nunan said. “This has left the U.S. sector with few—and inferior—avenues for customized digital technology consultation.”