About the Book
The practical guide to bridging manufacturing's most expensive divide: operations vs. information technology, where metal meets code.
Your company just spent $2 million on digital transformation. Six months later, IT still can't get production data, OT won't allow cloud connections, and the only thing transformed is everyone's patience.
While every conference preaches convergence and every vendor promises seamless integration, Information Technology and Operational Technology remain locked in a cold war that costs industries billions. And somewhere between these two worlds, digital transformation dies a slow, expensive death.
The IT/OT Handbook is a practical guide written by practitioners who've actually bridged this divide—through midnight plant crises, million-dollar-per-day downtimes, and systems built where metal meets code.
In this book, you'll discover why IT/OT convergence really fails (hint: it's not the technology), seven patterns of collaboration that show where you are and how to evolve, and battle-tested frameworks drawn from Lean, Agile, DevOps, and Team Topologies—adapted for operational realities.
Stop treating IT/OT integration like a technical problem. Start treating it like the organizational evolution it really is.
About the Author :
David Ariens entered the world of large chemical plants in 2010 as a freshly graduated mathematical engineer, stepping into a newly invented position: data scientist at BASF, the multinational chemical giant. He arrived at a pivotal moment—that same year, the industrial world was shaken by Stuxnet, the first computer virus to target an industrial plant. Designed to damage an Iranian uranium enrichment facility previously considered impregnable, Stuxnet sent a shock wave through the industry and marked the tipping point when IT made its way into the heart of manufacturing companies.
Building the bridge between the corporate IT world and the operational OT world became Ariens's profession. He traveled the globe, guiding companies through this complex and fascinating change. In 2012 he introduced BASF's global Industrial Cyber Security program and was put in charge of overseeing the EMEA region. By 2018 he had become responsible for the industrial digitalization teams at one of the world's largest chemical production sites—the BASF facility in Antwerp—while also taking functional leadership of the EMEA Industry 4.0 team.
Today Ariens is the managing director of Analytics For Industry, a company focused on accelerating IT/OT convergence. He serves as an advisory board member for the software startup Timeseer.AI and teaches courses on industrial digital transformation. He is committed to becoming the go-to resource for leaders navigating this paradigm shift.
Willem van Lammeren trained as a chemical engineer, but his passion for IT made digitalization in manufacturing the logical place to build his career. In 2006 he joined Barry Callebaut as part of a small team launching a new frozen pastry production facility in southern Spain. He then moved to AB InBev, the renowned Belgian brewery, where he coordinated and facilitated the implementation of a management excellence program across Western Europe before joining BASF.
At BASF, van Lammeren was one of the few people in IT who had actually worked in production, which positioned him to explore the emerging domain between IT and operations. He experimented with new approaches in fast, iterative fashion while also experiencing classical IT with detailed requirements and rigorous processes. He eventually moved closer to production, collaborating with David Ariens at the Antwerp site. After several years automating supply chain and lab solutions, he stepped into middle management, where many of their shared ideas took shape.
Today van Lammeren serves as tech lead for Industrial IT at Syensqo, where he leads the project to build the company's operational data lake. The idea for this book originated on an afternoon in his garden, when he called Ariens and suggested they stop talking about these ideas over coffee and start writing them down
Review :
“Ariens and van Lammeren have written the book the industry has needed for a decade, because writing it well requires having genuinely lived on both sides of the divide. These authors have. It shows on every page. The next generation of practitioners—whether from IT or from operations—has more capable technology at their disposal than any before them. What they need is what this book provides: a shared language for the organizational problem, a framework for cooperation that compounds rather than collapses, and the discipline to build foundations before chasing horizons. The goals haven’t changed. What’s now possible in service of those goals has.”
“Ariens and van Lammeren have written the book the industry has needed for a decade, because writing it well requires having genuinely lived on both sides of the divide. These authors have. It shows on every page. The next generation of practitioners—whether from IT or from operations—has more capable technology at their disposal than any before them. What they need is what this book provides: a shared language for the organizational problem, a framework for cooperation that compounds rather than collapses, and the discipline to build foundations before chasing horizons. The goals haven’t changed. What’s now possible in service of those goals has.”
“This book is a wonderful and overdue handbook for all Industry 4.0 practitioners who have been trying to access the value that we all know remains to be unlocked.”
“The IT/OT Handbook promises to be everything and more than the authors’ blog and podcast are. Based on hands-on experience, thorough analysis, and critical evaluation, it points to a world where, after many years of stagnation, we can finally move forward, making industrial production better, safer, and more efficient.”
“For anyone in manufacturing, energy, or other industries undergoing digital transformation, this is the guide you need to bridge the divide and unlock the full potential of your teams by aligning people and technology.”
“David and Willem have put together a ‘must read’ for anyone who works at or near the intersection of IT and OT. This book provides helpful, practical, and actionable insights that you’ll be able to apply to your own efforts right away.”
“David and Willem have written a practical guide to one of the hardest problems in industry today: getting IT and OT to actually work together….This book stands out because it connects this organizational shift to the technical foundation required to make it real. It’s a clear, actionable path to building systems that scale and turning data into action.”
“David and Willem always bring a grounded and pragmatic view on the realities around manufacturing digitalization and transformation.”
“As physical systems become increasingly software-defined, the line between IT and OT is disappearing. This handbook is a masterclass in industrial convergence, providing a timely and practical guide for navigating that shift. By cutting through the noise to provide a blueprint for breaking down silos, it helps organizations move from fragmented infrastructure to unified, intelligent operations. It is a must-have resource for anyone serious about the future of industrial automation and data-driven decision-making.”
“I spent over thirty years in steam crackers, and I learned early that the people who want to understand your world—not just sell you solutions—are rare. David was one of those people. When we worked together on digitalisation at the Antwerp cracker, he grasped quickly what it means to operate a facility where a single day of downtime costs a million dollars. That shared understanding is exactly what this book delivers: not theory, but the hard-won logic of making digital initiatives work in environments where failure has real consequences."
“Ariens and van Lammeren have written the book the industry has needed for a decade, because writing it well requires having genuinely lived on both sides of the divide. These authors have. It shows on every page. The next generation of practitioners—whether from IT or from operations—has more capable technology at their disposal than any before them. What they need is what this book provides: a shared language for the organizational problem, a framework for cooperation that compounds rather than collapses, and the discipline to build foundations before chasing horizons. The goals haven’t changed. What’s now possible in service of those goals has.”
