80% of ICS Failures Are Preventable—If You Fix This

Asset Management: The Foundation of Operational Control

In industrial environments, you can’t protect, monitor or control what you don’t know exists. Asset management is at the core of business continuity, cybersecurity, and operational efficiency. Yet, many organizations struggle with fragmented systems, outdated documentation, and inconsistent naming conventions.

You can’t protect, monitor or control what you don’t know exists

The Chaos of Inconsistent Naming

Every organization deals with asset names that vary across systems. One system calls a piece of equipment XYZ, another calls it BYD, and yet another calls it something entirely different. This leads to duplicate orders, misplaced inventory, and operational confusion.

A real-world example? Billing systems. When data is scattered across multiple networks with mismatched labels, reconciling financials becomes a nightmare. Power plants, for instance, have faced major financial inaccuracies due to incorrect metering signals and unstructured data flows. Read how ICS Secure Data Transfer solved this issue: ?? Billing System Gateway – Network Architecture.

Beyond Compliance: Making Asset Management Usable

Most corporate asset management systems are designed for compliance, not usability. They check the regulatory boxes but do little to support real-world operations. Somewhere in SAP is not the same as knowing where your critical spare parts actually are.

Most corporate asset management systems are designed for compliance, not usability.

At Bohemia Market, we take a different approach—one that prioritizes visibility, accessibility, and integration.

• Real-time Asset Monitoring: Centralized and always up to date, ensuring that plant operators, cybersecurity teams, and maintenance engineers work with the same information.
• Automated Reporting & Alerts: Ensuring assets aren’t just recorded but monitored for maintenance schedules, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and operational efficiency.
• Seamless Integration: Connecting with existing ICS, monitoring platforms, and cybersecurity solutions like ICS Secure Data Transfer, ensuring your data isn’t siloed but actively used for decision-making.

Cybersecurity & Asset Management: One Cannot Exist Without the Other

Every unknown or undocumented device is a potential cyber risk. You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. ICS Secure Data Transfer ensures:

• Secure, One-Way Data Flow: Preventing unauthorized access to ICS environments.
• Integration with Historian & Predictive Maintenance: Allowing power plants to detect anomalies early.

Every unknown or undocumented device is a potential cyber risk. You can’t protect what you don’t know exists.

How Long Payment Cycles Impact Asset Management

At first glance, payment terms might seem unrelated to asset management, but in reality, they have a direct impact on how organizations manage their equipment, spare parts, and maintenance strategies.

1. Delayed Payments Lead to Poor Inventory Management

When a company delays payments to suppliers for 180+ days, it disrupts the cash flow of vendors who provide critical spare parts, software licenses, and maintenance services. This can cause:

• Supply shortages: Suppliers may reduce stock or prioritize other customers who pay faster.
• Unreliable lead times: Essential parts may not be available when needed, causing unexpected delays in repairs or upgrades.
• Over-purchasing as a precaution: Companies may order excess parts to compensate for supply chain uncertainty, tying up capital unnecessarily.

2. Budget Constraints Delay Preventive Maintenance

When companies stretch payments over extended periods, maintenance budgets become unstable. This results in:

• Reactive instead of proactive maintenance: Organizations delay necessary servicing because funds aren’t available at the right time.
• Increased risk of unplanned downtime: Skipping preventive maintenance leads to failures, costing far more in emergency repairs and production losses.

3. Asset Lifecycle Disruptions

Long payment terms affect how companies handle equipment lifecycle management:

• Delayed upgrades: Companies hesitate to replace obsolete equipment because their financial structure is burdened by long outstanding payments.
• Uncertain investment in new technologies: When cash flow is unpredictable, businesses postpone decisions on modernizing asset tracking, cybersecurity solutions, and predictive maintenance systems.

Fixing Asset Management in Large Corporations

Corporate asset management suffers from:

1. Rigid, outdated systems that make real-time tracking impossible.
2. Long payment cycles (180+ days) that create cash flow issues.
3. Lack of asset ownership clarity, leading to wasted resources.

Lack of asset ownership clarity, leading to wasted resources.

With ICS Secure Data Transfer, we simplify how industrial facilities manage their critical systems—ensuring they operate securely, efficiently, and cost-effectively.

What’s Next?

Now that we’ve identified the key challenges in asset management, the next question is: How do we fix it?

Next week, we’ll dive into practical solutions—how to streamline asset tracking, improve visibility, and build an asset management system that actually works. Stay tuned.

If you want to know how you can do that for your control systems, message me and get on a call with me (no obligations on your part).

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