What a first-year OTCogniShield pilot includes

What a first-year OTCogniShield pilot includes

Welcome back. I am Sam Armstrong. This episode explains preparation, observation, engineering review and acceptance for an OTCogniShield pilot.

We will explain the initial design-partner programme, optional first-year commercial packages, and products to follow, including local AI and IIoTCogniShield.

The scope, safeguards, deliverables and costs belong in a written agreement before work starts. The episode closes with a practical checklist for that conversation.

Separate the evaluation from a paid first year.

The current initial design-partner programme offers the agreed pilot deliverables and founder-led consulting at no charge, subject to suitability and written scope.

The pilot timetable follows the factory’s needs. The website describes a typical observation period of around two to four weeks, followed by review and reporting.

A free initial pilot is not a year of free service. Any paid continuation is a separate proposal, with no automatic conversion to a subscription.

Start with one site and one clear question.

Start with one production area and a named plant lead. Explain what you want to understand, such as asset visibility, supplier access or customer evidence needs.

Agree the included systems, collection points, observation window and exclusions. Identify shared services and equipment outside the proposed feed.

Write measurable acceptance criteria before connection. Agree which records will demonstrate a useful result and who will review them.

Name the people and responsibilities.

Your team provides a plant contact who understands operations, an authorised traffic source and enough context to review the observed assets and relationships.

Name the network owner, controls reviewer and people who can approve installation and data handling. Agree who may pause or stop the evaluation.

The proposal should allocate appliance preparation, feed configuration, access arrangements, site work and acceptance tasks. Do not leave those responsibilities implied.

Choose an authorised observation source.

An approved recorded packet capture can be the starting point. Record where, when and how it was collected, and preserve its observation dates.

A live evaluation uses an approved switch mirror or suitable network TAP only after readiness checks, site approval and the agreed installation arrangements.

The passive observation scope uses no endpoint agents or active discovery scans across production equipment. Verify the collection arrangement against the approved design.

Agree what is collected and who can use it.

Before sharing captures or site information, agree the data-handling plan: collection source, authorised people, management access, storage, retention and backup.

Record the update-transfer route and any separately authorised export or support access. An appliance intended to remain offline still needs a clear support arrangement.

An initial enquiry needs only a high-level introduction. Agree the secure exchange method before providing detailed network information or captures.

Prepare the installation around production.

Confirm the physical ports, interface roles, power, management access and approved observation feed. Review any switch configuration or installation work with its owner.

Agree a suitable change window where needed, the pre-connection baseline and the checks to confirm that production and collection behave as expected.

Passive analysis does not remove installation risk. Record an immediate stop procedure, who invokes it and the agreed recovery or removal steps.

Build the baseline from the available traffic.

Observe the activity available through the agreed feed. Include representative production conditions where authorised, and note activities that were not observed.

Check collection freshness, available loss indicators and processing health. A quiet dashboard may reflect a visibility gap rather than a quiet factory.

The baseline covers communicating devices and interpretable traffic in scope. Keep silent equipment, encrypted detail, unsupported protocols and uncertain identities explicit.

Review the picture with the plant team.

Review the developing asset and relationship view with the people who understand the plant. Compare it with drawings, maintenance records and operational knowledge.

Separate directly observed details from inferred identities or roles. Record who confirmed each important statement and what evidence they used.

Turn disagreements into assigned questions. Keep findings, relevant operational consequences and practical next actions in a reviewable record.

Connect findings to a scoped assessment.

The agreed pilot deliverables include an IEC 62443-3-2 aligned risk assessment, scoped with the plant team and linked to relevant threat scenarios and operational consequences.

Record the risk method, existing controls, uncertainties, treatment decisions and responsible owners. The asset owner remains involved in reviewing and approving the relevant decisions.

The assurance-readiness summary identifies evidence gaps for applicable customer or assurance discussions. It does not award certification or determine legal compliance.

Review against the criteria agreed first.

At acceptance, compare observed devices with the agreed reference list, inspect expected protocol records and keep unsupported or missing information visible.

Trace a known capture through processing into the workspace. Check original observation times, agreed freshness indicators, restart behaviour and the stop procedure.

Review exported evidence for scope, dates, owners and limitations. Live capture, isolation, detection coverage and performance need their own acceptance evidence.

Leave with the agreed deliverables.

The handover brings together the agreed asset and relationship baseline, risk-assessment outputs, assurance-readiness findings and final recommendations.

Hold a joint review against the original success criteria. Record accepted results, unresolved gaps, any exclusions and the people taking responsibility for next actions.

The platform is in pre-launch validation. A controlled pilot evaluates the scoped installation; synthetic demonstrations or unrelated engineering checks do not establish factory performance.

Explain the no-charge pilot boundary.

For the current initial cohort, there is no charge for the agreed OTCogniShield pilot deliverables or founder-led consulting time.

Customer-side infrastructure, access arrangements or third-party costs can still arise. Identify those before acceptance rather than assuming the whole exercise has no external costs.

Agree the hardware loan, installation responsibilities, return arrangements and data exit plan in writing. A no-charge pilot does not imply a free hardware purchase.

Core: local operation with a defined allowance.

For an optional paid first year, the current indicative Core price is £3,500 annually, plus £1,500 for the one-off appliance purchase.

Core covers one agreed site and appliance, the contracted local monitoring, risk and evidence workflows, standard report templates and controlled offline update entitlement.

It includes up to six hours of remote platform support per subscription year. Operation is customer managed, and capacity, retention and collection scope are confirmed in the proposal.

Supported: more scheduled practitioner time.

The proposed Supported package is £6,995 annually, plus the £1,500 appliance purchase. Availability, final scope and pricing are confirmed before order.

Supported includes Core, with twelve remote support hours replacing Core’s six. It adds four scheduled remote engineering reviews of up to one hour each.

It also adds one annual operator refresher of up to two hours. The four reviews and refresher are additional to the twelve support hours.

Compare the same commercial boundaries.

Core is £5,000 in year one: the £3,500 annual package plus the £1,500 appliance. Deployment, travel and any applicable VAT are additional.

Supported is £8,495 in year one: the £6,995 annual package plus the £1,500 appliance, before those separately quoted costs.

Supported includes Core; there is no second Core charge. These are indicative pilot-offer figures from the current website copy, not a quotation for every site.

Quote the work needed for your site.

Deployment is quoted separately for the work required: planning, appliance preparation, agreed passive-feed checks, an operator walkthrough, documentation and acceptance checks.

Remote or on-site delivery is agreed before work begins. Installation, site visits, travel and network changes sit outside subscription allowances unless included in writing.

Bespoke reports, integrations, custom development and additional engineering also need agreed scope and an approved quotation. Ask for an itemised first-year proposal.

Understand the service you are purchasing.

The published support arrangement is email during agreed UK business hours. Included hours cover diagnosis and agreed assistance, rather than a guaranteed resolution time.

Annual allowances do not roll over. Additional work requires an approved quotation, and scheduled reviews should have an agreed purpose, evidence set and next actions.

The packages do not include a managed security operations centre, twenty-four-hour monitoring, emergency incident response, certification or safety-system changes. Arrange specialist services separately if required.

Separate annual rights from appliance ownership.

The selected annual package is the recurring component; the appliance purchase is one-off. Owning the hardware does not provide a perpetual Core licence.

The website’s commercial and expiry arrangements are proposed terms pending review and implementation acceptance. Confirm renewal delivery, evidence access, support and update rights in the written agreement.

Do not assume free continuing updates, an unlimited support entitlement or a particular expiry behaviour. The accepted agreement and validated supplied arrangements govern the deployment.

Plan the year around the package selected.

The first-year plan starts with preparation, observation and the joint pilot decision. It does not automatically commit the factory to an annual service.

If a paid package is selected, schedule the agreed support and engineering activity, update arrangements, operational responsibilities and review points for that term.

Supported’s scheduled reviews and refresher belong to that purchased package. Keep renewal planning, outstanding actions and any additional work visible before the term ends.

Make the next step a separate decision.

After the initial pilot, your team can request a separate commercial proposal or end the evaluation. There is no obligation to buy and no automatic paid subscription.

Follow the pilot plan for appliance removal or return, access closure, evidence handover and agreed retention or deletion. Assign owners to those exit actions.

Any case study, customer name, logo or site publication requires separate written permission. Participation in the pilot does not itself grant publication rights.

Planned local AI for assisted review.

The local AI direction is planned assisted OT threat hunting: using existing telemetry and approved baselines to help explain unusual devices, commands and communication paths.

The intended workflow links explanations and draft reports to source records, timestamps, confidence and visibility limits, with human review before export or customer communication.

This planned local capability is separate from the website’s online assistant. Availability, hardware requirements and commercial terms need validation and agreement; it is not promised within the pilot price.

A planned expansion with its own scope.

The Manufacturing and Robotics module is a planned add-on, released only after validation, with additional supported protocol decoders and engineering reports within its contracted scope.

The proposed model separates a perpetual licence for the purchased module version from optional annual maintenance. Any Core dependency and the separate rights must be stated before order.

Optional fieldbus capture hardware is separately priced and needs bus, driver and interface compatibility validated. Buying an interface alone does not enable a protocol decoder.

IIoTCogniShield: the planned wireless companion.

IIoTCogniShield is a planned wireless visibility companion, intended to help plant teams review observed wireless activity, unexpected devices and useful evidence kept locally.

The concept explores Wi-Fi, supported Bluetooth and BLE activity, and feasibility for selected radio-frequency sensor visibility. Tested radios, channels, decoders and placement will determine coverage.

It is not yet available for purchase or deployment. Hardware, pricing and release timing remain unconfirmed, and it is not included in the current pilot or package prices.

Agree the scope. See the evidence. Know the cost.

Before starting, ask for the written monitoring scope, safeguards, responsibilities, data plan, deliverables and acceptance criteria, together with any customer-side costs.

For paid continuation, compare the annual package, hardware, deployment, travel, tax and extras. Keep planned products separate, with their own validation, availability and commercial decisions.

A useful pilot leaves your team with reviewed evidence, practical actions and a clear decision about what happens next. Thank you.