Education Category - Page 6 of 14

Digitalization and Digitization: What’s the Difference?

Close up of digitization/binary code. — Digitization/binary code

If you read industry publications, you’ve probably already come across the terms digitalization and digitization a couple of times today. But do you know the difference?

It’s easy to confuse the terms. But understanding how they differ will help you gain the most information and understanding of the digital mindset.

What is Digitalization?

According to IGI Global, Digitalization is the “adoption of digital technologies to modify a business model….by exploiting digital network dynamics and the giant digital flow of information.” On the other hand, digitalization leads to the creation of a digital business. According to Gartner, this is “the creation of new business designs by blurring the digital and physical worlds.” More about this in a minute.

What’s the Difference between Digitization and Digitalization?

Digitization is where digitalization begins, in the conversion of analog data into a digital form that can be processed by a computer. Digitalization transforms digitized data through the use of digital technologies like automation, computing, coding, AI, or IoT(to name a few) to change how work gets done. And while digitization can optimize and change the process to create a better workflow, reduce costs, or minimize waste, digitalization creates a core change that affects the entire business model.

Modbus: An Introduction to the Protocol

When you’re running a modern factory, you have many machines that need to communicate with each other. These conversations occur over communication protocols that integrate with whatever native ‘language’ the machines speak. However, communications must translate each language to allow other networked devices to understand them. Modbus is one of the protocols that allow this communication to occur.

Modbus gateway I/O module from Reliance Electric. — Modbus Gateway I/O Module from Reliance Electric

What is Modbus?

This is the oldest and most popular of these communication protocols. Published by Modicon in 1979, it was originally used with the company’s programmable logic controllers or PLCs. But Modicon developed Modbus as an open protocol. Anyone could use them for free without licensing. Since its original development many software vendors, manufacturers, and other groups/organizations have supported the protocol.

The communication protocol uses serial lines to send data between devices. This is as simple as a single serial cable connected to serial ports on a Master device and a Slave device. Data moves at 9600 baud (bits per second) as series of zeroes and ones. Each zero or one is a single bit. Data follows regular patterns so 8 bits identifies as a larger byte.

Modbus is a type of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) automation protocol. It is now owned by Schneider Electric. It is used to help devices and equipment communicate by providing a common language all can understand. This allows for different nodes on the network to interact with request/response type messages.

What Are Modbus Communication Protocol?

The original Modbus interface used serial RS-232 communication. However, as the technology developed, options expanded to include serial RS-485, serial RS-422, and Ethernet. Formatted Ethernet packets embed Modbus messages inside, creating versatile setups. Additionally, networks designed with mixed drops can run different protocols altogether. For example, a single network could run three drops, one using MB Ethernet TCP/IP, another MB RS-232, and a third MB RS-485.

How Your Guitar is Like a Nuclear Power Plant

The two things have more in common than meltdowns.

Guitar fretboard. Closeup view. Guitars and nuclear power plants have something in common. Sort of. — Yes, guitars and nuclear power plants have something in common. In a way. Kind of.

If you’ve ever Googled the phrase “nuclear power plant” and “guitar” together — and really, who hasn’t — you’ve probably watched several epic videos of guitarists playing in abandoned cooling towers. You may have even bought some picks off Amazon featuring mushroom clouds or radioactive radiation symbols(for the guitarist who needs nuclear-powered picking.)

But what you probably didn’t know, even after perusing all of the Google results, is sometimes nuclear power plants and guitars share components. It’s true. Yes, thermal power stations that work by splitting atoms may actually have a small commonality with your guitar.

(thanks to Dan Phelps for use of his video.)

It’s your capacitor — or it might be. Many guitarists prize vintage paper and oil capacitors because they say they give off a brighter, more complex tone that can’t be duplicated with newer capacitor stock.