The mass rapid transit system, with over 20 lines spanning nearly 1,500 kilometers, transports billions of passengers annually across urban and suburban districts. The system relies on specialized industrial networks for railway electrification, signaling, communications, and an extensive building management system (BMS) for station and tunnel ventilation, lighting, and physical security. The rail operator faced challenges in maintaining visibility and control across these networks while adhering to stringent international safety integrity level (SIL) standards. The digitization and connectivity demands of passengers and vendors, who require timely updates and access to OT, IoT, and IIoT assets, posed a significant challenge. The legacy OT systems, designed with isolation in mind, were not equipped to connect and communicate with IT systems and the internet. The rail operator had no visibility into their industrial networks, making response and remediation of system failures difficult. Compliance with SIL standards was mandatory, and any third-party equipment introduced into the network had to work independently from safety-critical systems or integrate without affecting these systems and triggering recertification. The multiple layers of legacy OT systems, designed for a lifespan of 25 to 50 years, added further complexity to modernization efforts.

Vision Industrial Services, a Louisiana-based industrial welding contractor specializing in railroad construction and maintenance, was struggling with outdated, analog business processes. The company relied heavily on spreadsheets, emails, and physical calendars for communication, scheduling, and data management. This approach was not only slow and cumbersome but also prone to errors and data loss. As the company grew, these manual processes became increasingly challenging to manage. The General Manager, Melanie Smith, spent a significant amount of her time ensuring smooth communication and process execution. The lack of a digital solution led to endless email exchanges to relay information from customers to office staff and field workers, creating numerous opportunities for data to go missing.

Train collisions, though not common, can have devastating impacts, especially on the often unprotected rail engineer. The interior of the front rail car is built to withstand a moderate to severe impact, but the engineer console is virtually unprotected, leaving the engineer vulnerable to potentially life-threatening impact injuries. Sharma & Associates (SA), a provider of engineering solutions to the railroad industry, initiated research into creating an Engineer Protection System (EPS) concept. However, SA was not familiar with the necessary safety requirements, available systems, or overall performance tuning of impact environments and needed a partner to help develop the new system. The EPS had to meet specific criteria: it could not be triggered by the engineer and could not interfere with the engineer exiting the control car.