# Industrial Control System **Domain:** Operational Technology / Control Engineering **Doc Type:** Technical Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition An **industrial control system** is an architecture of sensors, controllers, networks, operator interfaces and actuators used to monitor and control physical industrial processes. ## Historical Lineage Local pneumatic, electrical and mechanical controls were progressively joined by digital controllers and supervisory networks. The result was not simply computerized administration: process logic became software-mediated while remaining constrained by physical time, safety and equipment behavior. ## Governing Variable Industrial control governs process state such as flow, pressure, temperature, speed, level, position and equipment mode. ## Material and Computational Manifestation [[wiki/PLC|programmable logic controllers]], remote terminal units, human-machine interfaces, historians, networks and field devices form common layers. [[wiki/SCADA|SCADA]] emphasizes distributed supervisory monitoring; a [[wiki/Building Management System|Building Management System]] applies related principles to buildings. ## Relation to Governance The architecture separates detailed local execution from higher-level supervision. That makes it a concrete precursor to the broader [[wiki/Control Plane|control-plane]] pattern without making industrial safety logic equivalent to political administration. ## Constitutional Question and Failure Modes Operators need authority to intervene, but remote coordination can obscure local conditions. Failure modes include insecure legacy protocols, unsafe change, loss of visibility, common-mode software faults and organizational separation between cybersecurity and process safety. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Cyber-Physical System|Cyber-Physical System]] · [[wiki/Operational Technology|Operational Technology]] · [[wiki/PLC|PLC]] · [[wiki/SCADA|SCADA]] · [[wiki/Telemetry|Telemetry]]