Asset Inventory & Segmentation

• Full inventory of PLCs, SCADA systems, and MES platforms across every production line in scope
• Network segmentation status documented — is OT genuinely isolated from IT today, or only nominally?
• Remote access paths into OT systems (vendor support access included) inventoried and reviewed

Standards Alignment

• IEC 62443 zone-and-conduit model mapped against your actual network architecture, not just referenced
• NIST SP 800-82 (industrial control systems security) alignment assessed for gaps
• ISA-95 level mapping (enterprise / MES / SCADA / PLC layers) documented to clarify where AI workloads sit

Data & Connectivity Readiness

• OPC-UA or MQTT gateway coverage confirmed for every asset that needs to stream data to an AI model
• Historian (e.g., OSIsoft PI) integration path defined for time-series data required by predictive models
• Edge compute requirements assessed — can inference run at the line, or does it require a round trip to cloud?

Governance & Incident Readiness

• An OT-specific incident response plan exists, distinct from the general IT incident response plan
• Patch management cadence defined for legacy equipment that cannot be patched on a standard IT schedule
• A named owner exists for OT security, not an assumption that IT security policy automatically covers it

Asset Criticality & Data Readiness

• Asset criticality ranked by failure consequence, probability, and detectability before selecting a pilot asset class
• 12–24 months of historical maintenance records and sensor data available for initial model training
• Sensor placement reviewed against actual failure physics, not just data availability

Financial Modeling

• Avoided-downtime cost methodology includes direct repair cost, production loss, quality cost, and restart cost — not just parts and labor
• Planned-vs-unplanned labor efficiency ratio tracked as a directly measurable, attribution-free metric
• Parts and inventory carrying-cost reduction modeled separately from avoided-failure savings

Organizational Readiness

• CMMS/EAM integration scoped as a workflow redesign project, not just a technical integration
• A common equipment taxonomy exists across sensor platforms, CMMS, and historian systems
• Finance partnership secured in ROI methodology design before the business case goes to capital review

Pilot Scope

• A single-line or single-asset-class pilot scoped first, rather than a plant-wide rollout
• Success criteria defined before the pilot starts, not interpreted after the results are in