Manufacturing and utility environments face a genuine tension. The business needs production data in its reporting and planning systems; the plant needs determinism, long equipment lifecycles and continuity. Meeting the first requirement by flattening the two networks together satisfies nobody safely.
Different requirements, not different maturity
Operational technology is often described as behind, when in practice it is optimised for a different objective. Equipment with a fifteen-year life and a patching window measured in hours per year is not badly managed; it is managed against continuity rather than change.
Integrate through a controlled path
A governed integration layer — inspected, segmented, monitored, and carrying only the data the business actually needs — lets production information reach enterprise systems without giving enterprise systems reach into the plant.
Design for the failure case
The important question is what happens to production when the integration path is unavailable. If the answer is anything other than 'production continues', the coupling is too tight.
In short
Move the data, not the boundary — and make sure production survives the integration being down.