What are the challenges with a “vendor agnostic mindset” and will this eliminate current issues Water companies currently face with their obsolescence and ageing infrastructure by 2030?
This daily dash is taking place at Newcastle Racecourse on Wednesday 10th July. It may be of interest to Operational Technology, Process Engineers, Suppliers, Finance / Procurement, H&S, Data Scientists, and other Industries.
Within the Water Industry it is common for certain products to be subject to procurement frameworks, often running for 5-8 years. As a result, the core products and services of the OT/IT world tend to be vendor centric. There are positives and negatives to this approach for both the Water Company and the vendor.
The positives include agreed pricing, support, maintenance and training. However, if the framework is single sourced this can result in supply chain issues, limited access to innovation, cyber demands, and obsolescence of equipment.
It is felt there may be elements of the Industrial / Process Automation infrastructure that could become vendor agnostic. This would shift focus to common languages, standards, and operating protocols. Would this vendor agnostic mindset unlock greater opportunities to drive transformation at speed, whilst ensuring that changing systems / vendors have less impact on a Water Company.
This dash will explore how Water Companies could become less vendor centric in relation of the existing classic IT/OT infrastructure. It will also seek to map challenges / opportunities in areas such as procurement, standards, operations and maintenance that could be faced by water companies in relation to what / how / if they adopted a vendor agnostic approach.