Back to case studiesOT security compliance diagnosis across 30+ AMEA factories
A seven-topic compliance diagnosis across 30+ factories in Asia, the Middle East & Africa: self-assessment, central analysis, risk-rated sites, and a per-factory remediation playbook — from unknown exposure to a tracked path to compliant.
7
compliance topics assessed per factory, from inventory to patching
30+
factories risk-rated with per-site action plans
Context
The global foundations program had set the standard — but in AMEA, across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, nobody could say which factories actually met it. More than thirty plants needed an IT connection for remote access, servers or data flows, and each one lived a different reality. I ran the regional compliance diagnosis: measure every in-scope factory against the same seven topics, rate the risk, and turn the result into a remediation plan with owners and dates.
The problem it fixes
A standard without measurement is a wish. Some plants had a filtering gateway deployed but never properly configured; others had none at all. Endpoint protection covered most assets but always missed a handful. Patch management was half-enrolled. Inventories were stale. Without a single comparable view, central teams could not prioritize, local teams could not sequence, and budget discussions ran on anecdotes instead of evidence.
The idea: a seven-topic diagnosis
Every factory self-assessed on the same seven topics: asset inventory, network design, firewall compliance — analyzed centrally rather than self-scored — network vulnerability scanning run on site, endpoint protection coverage on previously equipped assets, and patch management through local update servers. Each site then got one risk rating with plain rules: low for a minor or single gap, medium for an important gap or two unfinished topics, high where no gateway was deployed, unconfigured, or three topics trailed. One model, thirty-plus factories, zero ambiguity.
What it found
Over a third of sites rated high risk — nearly all of them places where no filtering gateway existed yet. The middle band was the familiar story of unfinished foundations: endpoint coverage in the eighties to nineties percent range missing a few assets, an inventory waiting on a refresh with the local OT manager, patching half-enrolled. A few sites had no dedicated OT contact at all, which explained their stall better than any technology gap. The pattern was clear: risk lived where the basics were missing, not where the threats were exotic.
The remediation playbook
Every factory left with its own action plan. Finish the foundations where they were almost done. Remediate and reconfigure gateways where they drifted. Complete the endpoint rollout asset by asset. Enroll the missing servers and workstations in update management and extend the scan scope to match. Where nothing existed yet, the plan was a full build-out: order hardware, prepare the server room, install switching and the gateway, migrate devices onto the new network, then scan, patch and protect. Sequenced quarter by quarter, with the support each site actually needed — central security alignment, network teams, or simply an engineer beside the local OT staff.
The operating model
A diagnosis only moves if someone owns each line. The program partnered factory by factory with the local OT manager, with clear responsibilities across central teams, OT and local IT for inventory, patching and deployment tasks. Firewall compliance reports were reviewed centrally, kickoffs pulled the remaining out-of-scope sites into the program, and progress tracked against the quarterly plan — so a red site in one quarter had a named path to green in the next.
Results
For the first time, every in-scope factory in the region stood on the same scale: measured, risk-rated, and carrying a dated action plan. High-risk sites moved into sequenced build-outs instead of sitting unknown; nearly-done sites closed their last topics one by one. Compliance stopped being a yearly audit event and became a trajectory the region could manage — the same foundations idea, now with proof of where each plant stood.
Next steps
This is the exact work INOPSIO runs today: a structured compliance diagnosis of your OT estate — inventory, network, access, endpoints, patching — rated plainly and turned into a sequenced remediation plan. If you cannot say which of your sites is high risk and why, a free assessment call is a short conversation away.
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