What’s Missing When Applying IoT Principles to Factory Operations?

While Industry 4.0 and the industrial internet of things (IIoT) dominate headlines, the nuances that vanish when traditional IoT concepts are applied to factory processes often go unnoticed.

IIoT was conceived on the premise that the same breakthroughs driving IT could accelerate operational technology (OT). That promise still holds, yet many subtleties have been overlooked on the factory floor, leaving IT and OT worlds largely disconnected.

Moore’s Law has consistently fueled IT’s demand for ever‑faster, more powerful processors. AI, driven by deep learning, has expanded into fields from machine translation to drug discovery to chess, demonstrating that manufacturing systems can now deliver outcomes that rival, and sometimes surpass, human expertise.

Conversely, many OT control systems remain entrenched in industrial‑era technology. A large portion of factories and utilities operate with proprietary, isolated controls designed to function autonomously from IT networks.

Manufacturing leaders are realizing that IT advancements do not seamlessly map onto industrial controls. Translating IT mechanisms into OT requires intimate knowledge of the factory environment, a strength possessed by companies like Infineon Technologies, Renesas Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments.

Ray Upton, TI’s vice president and general manager of connected microcontrollers, highlighted that OT demands distinct priorities—especially around energy use and latency. ‘We’re dealing with hundreds or thousands of sensors embedded in pumps and motors where downtime is unacceptable,’ he explained. ‘Predictability, security, reliability, and energy efficiency are paramount for industrial control systems.’

A truly smart factory requires infrastructure that is an order of magnitude more robust and reliable than conventional IT environments.

Connectivity—wired or wireless—remains the most stubborn IIoT hurdle. By its very definition, IIoT presumes internet connectivity, yet factory managers dread exposing their production lines to cyber threats. Historically, the prevailing belief was that industrial control systems (ICS) were air‑gapped from IT networks to shield them from attacks.

However, experts now recognize that the ‘air gap’ is largely a myth, except in highly specialized settings like nuclear plants, according to Phil Neray, vice president of industrial cybersecurity at CyberX.

Neray noted, ‘IT and OT networks are becoming more intertwined to support remote monitoring and maintenance, thereby expanding the attack surface.’ CyberX’s ‘Global ICS & IIoT Risk Report’ reports that roughly one‑third of OT networks are exposed to the public internet.

He added, ‘Compounding the issue, many OT protocols were engineered decades ago and are inherently insecure. For instance, they often lack authentication for uploading new ladder logic or firmware to controllers. Consequently, once an adversary infiltrates an OT network, they can easily compromise numerous ICs devices.’

Clearly, factory security demands far more attention than many OT managers currently acknowledge.