Bridging the gap between IT and OT in infra

The automation of assets for control and management is often only a limited part of the total scope for a civil main contractor or construction consortium in civil engineering, but in terms of complexity the share is considerable. ICT Group has been taking the complete automation and therefore the risks off your hands for years. By also bridging the gap between IT (Information Technology) and OT (Operational Technology) as a project partner, the 'best digital transformer' in the Netherlands is able to guarantee optimum safety, availability and reliability of assets.

Ever since 1978, ICT Group has been involved in automating processes with associated information provision, well before the term ICT took off. "We are originally a technical IT company and focus primarily on the technical aspects of information technology in sectors such as food, pharma, logistics, automotive and the infrastructure sector. This means that in addition to traditional IT, we also focus on embedded systems and process automation (OT) of assets in critical infrastructure, such as pumping stations, roads, bridges, tunnels and locks," says Eric van der Laan, business development manager Water and Energy at ICT Group. 

Turnkey project partner

In the infrastructure sector, automation has traditionally been a secondment market, but ICT Group likes to fulfill a role as a project partner because this is more in line with what the market demands today. "Although an infrastructure project is usually awarded in its entirety to a contractor or construction combination, we then function within that combination as a turnkey project partner for the automation," explains Herman Kraaij, Business Development Manager Infra at ICT Group. "A recent example of this is our contribution to the Blankenburg connection. We were commissioned by construction consortium BAAK to fully develop, test and demonstrate the total automation package. Even before any technical installation could be constructed at all, the software was ready." Van der Laan: "In this way, the construction consortium is not only relieved, but we also make an efficiency gain and risks can be reduced. After all, the responsibility lies with the party who can bear it, has the knowledge for this and knows which matters require extra attention in the preliminary phase so as not to cause problems during realization."

Collaboration

From its Water, Infra and Energy business unit, ICT Group is primarily concerned with critical infrastructure in which the aspects of
security, reliability and availability are central. We know what this means for automation and computerization and that is precisely where our strength lies. As a technical IT party in the Water, Infra and Energy sectors, we are used to combining both domains (IT and OT) and complementing each other," says Van der Laan. "We have process and IT engineers with many years of experience in these sectors who are able to translate the aspects of safety, reliability and availability into concrete IT and OT applications. Because IT and OT are being developed in an increasingly integrated way today, projects are much more of an interplay and interaction between client, stakeholders and contractors than they used to be with traditional specification requests. More variants are possible that require careful fine-tuning on exactly what is desired, whether or not using advancing insight." 

Complex manageability

Apart from the new assets to be built, we in the Netherlands face a huge renovation task of bridges, locks and tunnels built in the 1960s and 1970s. "These will have to be renovated and digitized on a large scale in the coming years," Kraaij rightly states. "We notice an increasing demand for making the assets smarter in order to be able to anticipate situations in a data-driven (and thus qualitatively better) way. Moreover, the automation domain touches many more facets than just the structure an sich, because such a structure is often operated centrally and is part of a network of Rijkswaterstaat, the province or the municipality. Even the energy to monitor availability or the maintenance service purchased to ensure continuity is usually supplied from outside the object. So our field of expertise goes far beyond the project. Automation is a complex manageability with often many stakeholders who are not part of the project, but are needed to properly fulfill the project demand."

"So in short, more knowledge and more information is needed to ultimately optimize an object's management activities toward safety, reliability and availability," Van der Laan summarizes. "It requires acting on facts rather than gut feeling. The great thing is that we are constantly learning from the best practices from the various markets in which we operate. That accelerates the digital transformation, also of the infra." ICT Group was recently named best Digital Transformer of the Netherlands in the Software, Development & Platforms/Enablers-Overall category by entrepreneurial platform MT/Sprout. "A great step that contributes to our ambition to strengthen our leading position in digital transformation for the infra."