This morning a business user at a renewable energy company told me about their reporting headache:
“There’s always a data issue at one site… Most often it’s not a system issue but a network connectivity problem. The IT team is rolling out a new interface to monitor this. The problem is, we need to detect and fix issues quickly, but this involves multiple teams. Which means it’s never quick.”
Sounds familiar?
Here’s what’s actually happening:
The company has a good data platform (Databricks). They’re now building a monitoring interface. The engineers know what to do. But this solution still doesn’t work reliably across sites because:
- There’s hundreds of sites.
- No clear process for rapid detection and resolution.
- Issue resolution require coordination across several teams.
This isn’t a technical problem. It’s an organizational one. The challenge isn’t building better interfaces or writing better code. It’s:
- Reacting to detected problems.
- Establishing clear escalation processes.
- Getting multiple teams to coordinate quickly.
This is the real work of platform rollout in industrial companies. You can have the best centralized data platform, the most sophisticated monitoring tools, and highly skilled technical teams, but if you can’t coordinate across teams (IT, OT, and Business) when problems arise, your reporting will always be “a headache.”
The solution isn’t more technology. It’s better governance, clearer processes, and someone who can align IT processes with OT reality.