Who Should Lead Factory Digitalization? Lessons from an IIoT Panel

On 10 September 2026, IIoT World published an article on a simple but decisive question: who should lead the digitalization of the factory? Its thesis is that production directors should do so, rather than central IT alone. It is worth stating up front that this is not new research: the piece reworks the panel "The Essential Components of Digital Transformation in Manufacturing," held at IIoT World Manufacturing Days 2023, and the article itself discloses that artificial intelligence tools helped summarize it.

The panel and its core argument

The panelists represented Siemens (digitalization consulting for the process industries), A1 Digital, HiveMQ and Mestec, now part of Eyelit Technologies. These are therefore the voices of vendors and consultants: a qualified point of view, but not a neutral one. The central argument is that production teams know which data the plant needs, when it is needed and how it connects to operational results.

Four failure patterns when IT leads without production

According to the analysis, the recurring problems are these:

• Initiative sprawl: one manufacturer reportedly launched 100 initiatives at once, with budgets leaving the company before anyone asked which ones were delivering results.
• Communication silos between departments.
• Missing infrastructure: without a working plant network, no digitalization software can run. One speaker compared it to building a house without foundations.
• Analysis paralysis: lengthy preliminary studies that exhaust teams before anything is implemented.

Why projects stall

A Mestec consultant said she had never heard of a digital transformation failing because the technology did not work: projects fail because the wrong team leads them. A second problem is organizational: management readily approves proofs of concept but then does not change the organization based on the results.

It is not the technology that makes projects fail, but who leads them.

How to start: three steps

The Siemens consultant proposes a three-phase path:

• Define why digitalization matters, for example competitiveness, speed to market or costs. This choice determines the KPIs.
• Honestly assess the current situation: existing systems, level of automation and baseline connectivity.
• Build a prioritized roadmap from that assessment, instead of launching initiatives in parallel.

The panel also recommends cross-functional teams that include operators and, where useful, an external consultant acting as a mediator between departments.

Survey data: read with caution

The article also reports some audience survey results. As the main goal of digitalization, 38% cite identifying bottlenecks and improving efficiency, 27% visibility into operations, and 25% access to real-time data. Among the main challenges, 43% cite production optimization and 29% the high cost of operations. Sample size and year are not stated; they probably refer to the 2023 session, but this is not certain. The figures should therefore be treated as indicative only.

Key takeaways

The advice is qualitative and comes from a panel of vendors and consultants, but it is consistent with the experience of many machine connectivity and MES projects. For plant managers and IT/OT leaders, several practical points follow: start from an explicit business objective and real bottlenecks; check the plant network and machine connectivity first; limit the number of initiatives running at once; involve operators and production from the outset, leaving IT as an essential partner on security and architecture. Finally, plan already at the proof-of-concept stage how the organization will change if the results are positive.