Before buying connected equipment, decide who can use the operating data

What is changing or failing?

The EU Data Act has applied since 12 September 2025. Among other provisions, it gives users of connected products—including industrial machinery—rights relating to access and sharing of data generated through use. It also addresses switching between data-processing services and unfair contractual barriers.

That does not automatically make refinery equipment data useful. A plant can have a legal or contractual access route while still lacking the interfaces, metadata, quality, context and operating ownership needed to turn the data into a reliability or performance decision.

The common failure begins during procurement: the team evaluates equipment capability and purchase price, while data access, portability and downstream use remain assumed. The Data Act requires pre-contract information including the type, format and estimated volume of data, whether it is generated continuously or in real time, where it is stored, retention and how the user can access or retrieve it. Those questions are also a useful commercial specification outside strict legal applicability.

Why does it matter commercially?

If the refinery cannot obtain or responsibly share usable equipment data, it may become dependent on one service channel, duplicate data infrastructure or delay condition-based maintenance and performance analysis.

The value at stake is larger than an IT integration cost. It can affect maintenance planning, fault diagnosis, energy optimisation, warranty discussions and the ability to compare performance across an installed base.

Clear data rights can also increase negotiating leverage. Management can separate the value of the physical asset, the connected service and the analytics layer instead of accepting them as one inseparable commitment.

What must management decide?

Before purchase or renewal, management should decide which operating outcomes depend on the data, which data must be accessible, who may receive it and what must remain portable if the technology relationship changes.

This is a cross-functional decision. Operations and maintenance define the use; procurement secures the commercial terms; IT and OT define the architecture and security boundary; legal determines how the applicable rules and contract interact.

The decision should not presume that every available data point must be extracted. It should identify the minimum data set required for the named outcome.

Distinguish four kinds of control

Legal: what the applicable law permits or requires
Contractual: what the purchase and related-service terms promise
Technical: what can actually be exported, interpreted and shared securely
Operational: what data is sufficiently contextualised and reliable to improve the named decision

The investment case is only as strong as the weakest control needed for the intended use.

What evidence is required?

Named reliability, maintenance, energy or performance use case
Inventory of raw and pre-processed data generated during use
Access method, frequency, latency, format and relevant metadata
Rights to share data with selected maintainers, analysts or technology providers
Cybersecurity, confidentiality and trade-secret safeguards
Data quality, retention and failure responsibilities
Switching, export and deletion provisions
Cost of access, integration and continued service
Pre-contract statement of data type, format, volume, frequency, storage and retrieval method
Metadata required to interpret the data outside the supplier’s own platform

Legal entitlement, technical access and operational usefulness should be tested separately. A positive answer to one does not prove the others.

What should happen next?

Add a data-use schedule to connected-equipment and related-service decisions.
Start with the operating outcome and define the minimum useful data—not a generic request for all available data.
Test access, export and third-party sharing before the commercial commitment becomes difficult to reverse.
Assign an internal owner for data quality and operational use after commissioning.
Revisit the value case when access costs, service conditions or the technology provider changes.