Resources · Tool

Integration Readiness Assessment

Fifteen questions across the five dimensions that decide whether an integration survives contact with a working site. It scores each one separately and will not let four strong dimensions carry a fatal fifth — because that combination is the exact shape of the projects that fail.

Five precision-machined steel gauge blocks standing in a row, four aligned at the same height and the fifth shorter and set out of line, a red witness line running across their faces and breaking where the short block interrupts it.

Takes: 6 minutes
You get: A scored readiness profile and the two weakest dimensions named
Cost: Free, no sign-up

Everything below runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us, stored, or logged, and closing the tab discards it. There is no submit button and no server call — the result below updates as you answer.

Equipment accessibility

UNIT 01

Whether the physical asset can be read and commanded, by someone other than the company that installed it.

What can the equipment you want to integrate actually talk to today?

Take the least accessible asset in scope, not the newest one. The project is paced by the worst case, not the average.

Open protocol available and documentedModbus TCP, OPC-UA, EtherNet/IP, MQTT or similar, with a register or tag map we could be handed.It has a network port, but the protocol is the vendor's ownThe data is on the wire but the format belongs to the OEM, and reading it needs a licence, an SDK or a gateway.Serial or local onlyRS-232/RS-485, a USB service port, or a panel that has to be read where it stands.No data interface at allRelay contacts, gauges, lamps, or a paper log. Anything digital would have to be added.

If a third party needed access to that equipment, could you grant it?

This is a commercial question more often than a technical one.

Yes — we own the controller and hold the credentialsNo permission needed from anyone outside the company.Yes, but it needs a change to a service contractThe OEM or maintainer would have to agree, and probably to be paid.Only in ways that do not touch the control systemWarranty or certification terms restrict what can be connected to it.No — the vendor controls it and will not open itAccess is refused, or only offered through the vendor's own paid platform.

What documentation exists for the installed system?

Current drawings, I/O lists and a tag scheduleUpdated when the plant last changed, and someone can point to them.Documentation exists but is out of dateAs-built drawings from commissioning, with undocumented changes since.It is in one or two people's headsNothing written, but the knowledge exists in the building.None, and the people who built it have goneThe system would have to be surveyed before anything could be specified.

Data foundation

UNIT 02

Whether there is anything trustworthy to integrate, and whether a thing on the floor can be matched to a row in a system.

Can a physical thing be matched to a record in a system, reliably?

Asset tags, batch numbers, container numbers, work orders — whatever your unit of work is.

Yes, every unit carries an identifier we controlOne scheme, applied consistently, and it resolves to exactly one record.Mostly, with known exceptionsA scheme exists but some categories sit outside it and get handled by hand.Several competing schemesOperations, finance and the OEM each use a different identifier for the same thing.No consistent identifierThings are matched by description, location or memory.

How much operating history could you hand over tomorrow?

Relevant if anything downstream is going to learn from patterns rather than follow rules.

A year or more of timestamped records, retrievableHistorian, SCADA logs, or a database that has been running and is still readable.Some months, in exportable formEnough to see a pattern, not enough to see a season.It exists but only on paper or in spreadsheetsRecorded faithfully, in a form nothing can read at scale.Nothing is retainedValues are displayed and then discarded.

When the numbers in the system disagree with the floor, which is right?

Everyone has an answer to this. It is the most diagnostic question in the model.

The system, and we would investigate the floorThe record is treated as authoritative because it has earned it.It depends which system, and people know which ones to trustSome sources are reliable, others are known to lag or be edited.The floor, always — the system is a formalityData is entered to satisfy a process, not to be used.We would have no way to settle itThere is no reconciliation, so the disagreement would simply stand.

Network and security posture

UNIT 03

What gets exposed the moment the operational side and the business side are joined.

How is the control network separated from the office network?

Separated, with a controlled crossing pointA firewall or data diode, with rules someone owns and reviews.Separate VLANs on shared switchingLogically apart, physically together, with rules set once at install.One flat networkA laptop in the office can reach a PLC on the floor.Nobody could tell you without tracing cablesThe topology grew rather than being designed, and no current diagram exists.

How do outside parties get in when equipment needs support?

Machine builders, integrators and maintenance contractors all count.

Through a brokered session we open and watchTime-limited, logged, and closed afterwards.A VPN account per vendorStanding access, individually issued, reviewed occasionally.A shared account or a permanently connected boxA cellular router or a TeamViewer install that has been there for years.We are not certain what is connectedThere may be links installed at commissioning that nobody has audited.

Who owns security for the operational side?

A named person, with OT in their remit explicitlyTheir responsibility covers the plant floor, not only corporate IT.Corporate IT, informallyThey would be called, but the plant is not really theirs.Engineering, as part of keeping the plant runningHandled by the people who own uptime, on judgement rather than policy.It has not been assignedIt would become a question the day something happened.

Process stability

UNIT 04

Whether the process being automated is settled enough to be worth encoding.

How settled is the process you want to automate?

Stable and documented, and it runs the same way each timeTwo people doing it produce the same result.Documented, but people work around the documentThe written version and the practised version have diverged.It varies by person, shift or customerEveryone is competent; nobody does it identically.It is being changed right nowA reorganisation, a new product line, or a system being replaced.

What share of cases go down the exception path?

Exceptions are where automation projects lose their business case. Estimate honestly rather than optimistically.

Under 5%, and the exceptions are known typesThe long tail is short and has names.Roughly 5–20%Routine enough to plan for, big enough to need designing for.More than 20%Handling exceptions is a large part of the job.We do not measure itNobody has counted, so any figure would be a guess.

Can the decision the process turns on be written down as a rule?

Yes — it is a rule, and we could state itThresholds, tables or conditions that a person could hand over on a page.Mostly a rule, with judgement at the edgesClear for the common cases, experienced for the rest.It is judgement, informed by experienceExplicable after the fact, hard to state in advance.It is negotiated with people outside our controlCustomers, regulators or partners decide, case by case.

Operating capacity

UNIT 05

Who runs the thing on the Monday after handover, and what happens when it breaks.

Who owns this system after handover?

Not who sponsors the project — who is accountable for it still working in eighteen months.

A named person whose job includes itIdentified now, and their manager agrees.A team, without an individual namedIt would land with whoever is free.Whoever builds it, under a support contractThe capability stays outside the company.Not decidedThis is the question the project would answer last.

How does your organisation take on a new system?

We have done it before and it stuckA previous rollout is still in daily use and people would name it.Mixed recordSome systems took, some are quietly bypassed.New systems tend to get worked aroundThe old way survives beside the new one.This would be the firstNo precedent either way.

Is there budget for running it, separate from building it?

Licences, support, the hours somebody spends on it each month, and the first year's changes.

Yes, and it is in an operating budgetRecurring, and it survives the project closing.Some, folded into the project costCovered for a first year, unclear after that.Capital onlyThe build is funded; running it is assumed to be free.Not discussed yetThe business case is about the build.

0 of 15 answered — the result appears when the last one is in

Result

UNIT 06

ANSWER ALL 15 QUESTIONS TO SEE YOUR PROFILE

Technical references

UNIT 07

What the reasoning on this page is drawn from. Where a standard costs money to read it is marked, and where a free document covers the same ground better it is listed first.

NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 3NISTGuide to Operational Technology Security. Free, several hundred pages, and the most useful single document in this field. The segmentation logic in our planner follows its zone and conduit reasoning.
ISA-95Paid standardISAThe enterprise-control integration standard the Purdue level model comes from. Levels 0 to 4 as they are actually defined.
ISA/IEC 62443Paid standardISAThe industrial automation security series. What a customer or insurer will name when they ask how your OT is secured.
ISO 42001 explainedISOISO's own free summary. The right first read if you are deciding whether certification is relevant before buying the standard.

Links open in a new tab so anything you have entered above survives. Every one was checked at build time; if one has rotted since, tell us and it comes out rather than getting patched from memory.

Every one of these tools is a compressed version of a conversation. If yours turned up something you would rather talk through than read about, that is what the scoping call is for — bring your result with you.

Talk through your binding constraint

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