The Spreadsheet Problem: Why OT Teams Are Moving to a Unified Source of Truth

Picture a candy manufacturing facility where production runs around the clock. A PLC controlling the wrapping station throws an error, and the maintenance engineer needs to locate the device, check its network configuration, and understand what else might be affected downstream. She opens the floor plan taped to the control room wall, cross-references it with an Excel spreadsheet that was last updated sometime last quarter, and calls over a technician who has been with the company for fifteen years to fill in the gaps.

This scenario plays out daily across manufacturing, food production, beverage bottling, and hospital environments. When we talk with operations teams about their OT documentation, we hear the same refrain, “We have this environment documented to a point…” That trailing off tells the whole story.

The documentation landscape for operational technology is fragmented by nature. Sometimes there are floor plans showing how assembly lines were originally laid out. Sometimes there are Excel spreadsheets tracking device inventories. Sometimes there is a combination of tools that different teams adopted at different times for different purposes.

This patchwork creates a fundamental friction for teams who struggle to answer whether the documentation is accurate. Is it 0% accurate? Is it 100% accurate? The honest answer usually falls somewhere in between, and that uncertainty carries real operational risk.

Why OT Documentation Has Lagged Behind IT

For years, teams assumed platforms like NetBox were built exclusively for IT environments, handling routers and switches and servers but not the specialized equipment that lives on manufacturing floors. This assumption is not accurate, but it has kept many OT teams from exploring modern documentation approaches.

The physical reality of OT environments contributes to this gap. IT infrastructure tends to concentrate in data centers and network closets, centralized locations where documentation practices have matured over decades. Operational technology spreads across production facilities, assembly lines, and specialized environments that operate independently from corporate IT networks.

Many of these OT networks are effectively air-gapped. An assembly line might have its own switch connecting a collection of PLCs, barcode readers, conveyor motors, and sensors, but that network does not cross into the IT environment. Each production line becomes its own documentation challenge, and traditional IT-focused approaches do not translate directly.

The result has been a reliance on whatever documentation method feels most accessible. Excel spreadsheets become the default not because they are the best tool for the job, but because they are familiar and available. Tribal knowledge fills in the gaps that spreadsheets cannot capture. Floor plans and hand-drawn diagrams handle the spatial relationships that spreadsheets ignore.

What Good Looks Like

The goal is not documentation for its own sake. The goal is a single source of truth that can answer fundamental questions about operational infrastructure with confidence.

When we work with customers in food production, beverage bottling, candy manufacturing, and healthcare, the objective remains consistent: the vast majority of OT device information should live in NetBox, accessible to anyone who needs it, accurate enough to act on without second-guessing.

This means being able to answer questions like: What devices are on this assembly line? How are they connected? What IP addresses are in use, and on which interfaces? What happens if this PLC goes offline? Who owns this equipment, and when does the warranty expire?

Good documentation transforms how teams respond to operational challenges. Instead of triangulating between floor plans, spreadsheets, and institutional knowledge, the information needed to maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize OT infrastructure becomes immediately accessible. The question shifts from “where might this information be” to “what action should we take based on what we know.”

For teams managing equipment across multiple sites or production lines, this shift represents operational resilience in environments where downtime carries real consequences.