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In industry, valuable data is generated right on the shop floor. But it is only when production data is securely connected to ERP, the cloud, and other IT systems that it creates real added value: better quality, optimized processes, more informed investment decisions, and the foundation for AI. To achieve this, IT and OT must be considered together from the very beginning.
Patrick Hofer
A manufacturing facility wants to use process data from its plant for a higher-level dashboard or data analysis. The data is available. But how can it be securely transferred from the production floor to that destination? And how can the facility ensure that the plant’s availability and stability are not compromised in the process?
Today, these kinds of issues are increasingly part of everyday industrial life. Production facilities are no longer closed systems. At the same time, the requirements of OT sometimes differ significantly from those of traditional IT. In production, for example, the focus is on availability, long lifecycles, and existing automation structures. On the IT side, secure networking, cybersecurity, data access, and cloud architectures play an important role.
To create a seamless solution that combines the best of both worlds, it is therefore not enough to simply create a technical interface at the end.
The Purdue model provides a clear illustration of what this collaboration looks like in practice. CTE operates where the data is generated: from the field level and control systems through automation to the process control level. Our task is to make the data from the plant available in a secure and structured manner until it is transferred to Level 3 or 3.5.
This is where Swisscom steps in with its expertise in traditional IT: It ensures the secure connection and protected transmission of data and creates the conditions necessary for this data to be used in higher-level IT systems, at the enterprise level, or in cloud applications.
The key point here is that Level 3.5 does not create a hard dividing line between the two providers. The interface is designed and coordinated jointly. CTE understands the requirements and dependencies of the production facility, while Swisscom understands those of the overlying IT infrastructure. This creates a seamless chain from the machine to the digital use of the data.
The fact that this joint approach is also proving successful in the market is already evident from the first concrete customer inquiries. Thanks to Swisscom’s market access, CTE and Swisscom were able to take on and work on several projects together within a short period of time.
That is precisely where the value of the partnership lies: IT/OT convergence does not mean that a single provider must cover all disciplines on its own. What matters is that the right areas of expertise come together and that the interfaces are designed collaboratively. CTE and Swisscom intend to continue pursuing this approach in future customer projects.
What happens when an order from the IT world directly triggers a real-world production process? Our cocktail machine illustrates exactly this interaction: from the order, through automation and production, to the secure transmission and analysis of process data.
What happens with our cocktail machine in just a few minutes is, in principle, similar to industrial applications: A job enters production, automation executes it, process data is generated, and it is securely transmitted to higher-level systems. The secure connection to the IT environment is established via Swisscom’s Gateway as a Service. There, the data can be visualized, analyzed, and used to inform further decisions.
At the Next Industries Industry Forum, the Swisscom Business Days, and SAP Now, CTE and Swisscom jointly demonstrated this use case live at the cocktail machine over the past few weeks. The machine quickly became a crowd favorite. We served around 250 cocktails at the three events.
