ROUNDTABLES
Closed-door peer sessions, operator to operator
The most useful conversation about IT that a plant manager has all year is usually with another plant manager.
Not with a vendor. Not at a trade show booth. With somebody who has the same three shifts, the same customer questionnaires, the same one server nobody wants to touch, and who already made the mistake you're about to make.
Roundtables are our attempt to put that conversation in a room on purpose. They're a free member benefit, and in KTI's client conversations they're the thing operators ask for most.
The format
Small
Capped at roughly 12 people. Above that it stops being a conversation and turns into an audience, and audiences don't tell you anything.
Chatham House rule
You can use what you hear. You cannot say who said it or where they work. That's the whole reason anybody talks about the bad week honestly.
Nothing is recorded
No video, no audio, no transcript, no LinkedIn post afterwards. Attendees get a short anonymised note of the practical takeaways: no company names, no attributions.
No vendors pitching
Not us either. A SafeIT person is usually in the room to keep time and to answer a technical question if one comes up, and that is the extent of it. There is no slide deck, no product, and no follow-up call generated from the attendee list. If a session ever turns into a pitch, tell us and we'll fix it, because we'd have broken the only rule that makes this work.
Competitors in the same room
It happens, and it's usually fine, nobody is discussing pricing or customers. If you'd rather not sit across from a direct competitor, say so when you request a seat and we'll place you in a different session.
Who's in the room
Operators. Specifically:
- Plant managers and site leads
- Operations and manufacturing directors
- Owners and general managers of smaller plants
- Controllers, when the topic is spending money
- Quality and compliance people, when the topic is audits and questionnaires
- The person who owns IT by accident: the maintenance lead, the office manager, the engineer who happened to know how the VPN worked in 2016 and has owned it ever since
That last group is the one we build these for. If your job title has nothing to do with IT but the phone rings for you when the ERP goes down, you belong here, and roughly half the room is in the same position.
You do not need to be technical. There is no assumed knowledge and nobody is going to make you feel stupid for asking what a firewall rule is.
Cadence and where they happen
Sessions run against a rolling twelve-month topic calendar, set from member input rather than from whatever we feel like promoting.
In person, regionally, across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany: usually hosted at a member's plant, sometimes at a neutral venue. Half a day, including a walk of the host site if the host is willing.
Virtual, roughly 90 minutes, so a single-site plant three hours from the nearest city isn't shut out of the benefit. Same cap, same rules, same no-recording policy.
Scheduled sessions are listed on Events.
A sample agenda
Half-day, in person, hosted at a member plant
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 0:00 | Arrive, coffee, no name badges. Everyone says who they are and what their plant makes, in one sentence. |
| 0:15 | Host's walk: a short tour of the plant, if the host wants to give one. Often the most useful 20 minutes of the day. |
| 0:40 | Topic one. Someone in the room opens with a real situation from their own site. Not a presentation, a story with an unresolved bit in it. |
| 1:20 | Open floor. What everyone else did, what worked, what cost more than it should have. |
| 1:50 | Break |
| 2:00 | Topic two. Same shape, different person. |
| 2:50 | Round the table. One question each, whatever's actually on your mind. This routinely runs over and we let it. |
| 3:30 | Close. Anonymised takeaway note goes out within a week. |
Virtual sessions run the same shape, compressed to 90 minutes and without the plant walk.
What people actually talk about
Real topics from the calendar. Notice what isn't on it: no product roadmaps, no framework overviews, no "the threat landscape in 2026."
- "What a ransomware week actually looked like." An operator walks through their own incident, hour by hour, including the parts they got wrong. This is the session people ask for again.
- "Answering a customer's cyber questionnaire without lying." What they're really asking, what a defensible answer looks like, and what happens when you have to write "no" in a box.
- "Justifying IT spend to an owner who's seen the line run fine for 30 years." How to build the case in operational terms, downtime hours, missed shipping windows, audit exposure, rather than in IT terms.
- "Keeping a 20-year-old line running." The machine with the unsupported operating system, the HMI screen that can't be patched, the vendor who no longer exists. What people have actually done about it. See also legacy & critical-system continuity.
- "Hiring when nobody wants to work in a plant." Not strictly IT, but it comes up at every single session, so we put it on the calendar honestly rather than pretending it doesn't.
- "One provider or three?" Consolidating IT, phones, cameras and line-side support, and whether it's worth it.
- "What happens when we buy a plant." Integrating another site's IT without stopping either line.
How seats work
Seats come with membership. A chair in the room is a real cost to us, so it is part of membership rather than something a free account unlocks. Past topics and the format are open to everyone. Become a member.
Because the cap is roughly 12, sessions fill. When one does:
- Members of Both get priority allocation, members who also belong to one of the associations on our partner organizations list.
- Members who haven't attended in the last two sessions come next, so the same eight people don't take every seat.
- Everyone else goes on the list for the next session on that topic, and we tell you when it's scheduled rather than leaving you to check.
One seat per company as standard, so a single group doesn't take a third of the room. Ask if you need two: sometimes a plant manager and the person who owns IT by accident genuinely need to be in the same conversation, and we'll usually say yes.
Full tier detail is on Member benefits.
What we ask of you
This only works if the room contributes. So, plainly:
Come to give something, not just to take something
Everyone at the table has solved a problem somebody else in the room still has. You don't need a polished story. "Here's what we tried, here's what it cost, here's what I'd do differently" is worth more than any prepared material.
Be honest about the bad week
The Chatham House rule exists so you can be. A session where everybody says things are broadly fine helps nobody, least of all you.
Respect the rule
What's said in the room stays attributed to nobody. Break that once and the whole thing is finished.
Show up if you take a seat
Twelve seats means the person you no-show on didn't get in. If you can't make it, tell us and we'll release it.
Leave the sales hat at home
If you supply into manufacturing, you're welcome as an operator talking about your own plant, not as someone working the room.
Propose a topic or host a session
Propose a topic
If there's something you'd genuinely like eight peers' opinions on, send it. Member-proposed topics go on the rolling calendar ahead of anything we come up with internally, because a question somebody actually has beats a question we invented.
Host at your site
Hosting means a room, coffee, and a short walk of your plant if you're willing. You get the session at your site, you help set the topic, and you get two seats instead of one. Most hosts tell us the plant walk generated as much useful conversation as the agenda did, other operators notice things your own team stopped seeing years ago.
Propose a topic or offer to host → tell us through the contact form, or tick the box when you join.
What this means for your plant
What this means for your plant Twelve operators, no vendors, no recording, and answers you can't get from a vendor. Free with membership, in person across four countries or virtual. Come with a real problem and a real story, and you'll leave with both handled.
Request a roundtable seat → /membership/join/
Related
- Become a member, and the seat that comes with it
- Member benefits, where roundtable seats sit in the stack
- The membership model, how member input sets the topic calendar
- Events, the scheduled sessions
- Cork coverage, protection for every member
- Book a free assessment
- Resource library · NIST readiness
- Legacy & critical-system continuity · Services
- Partner organizations