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Unit 1 · Digitalisation and IT/OT¶

Picture a city-builder game such as Cities: Skylines. Your city has two halves. One half physically works: the water plant, the power station, the traffic lights, the factories. The other half keeps the records: the city hall with its registers, taxes, permits and the service desk for citizens. A real company is the same kind of city. In this unit you learn to see both halves, the office side called IT and the operational side called OT, and to understand why the most interesting work happens in the pipes that connect them.

Learning outcome	Hours	Term
RA1 — Analyses the concept of digitalisation and its impact on the productive sectors, taking into account the company's activity and identifying its characteristic IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) environments.	3	1^st

What you will learn

Tell digitisation, digitalisation and digital transformation apart, and avoid the trap of thinking that digitalising means buying computers
Explain how digital technology changes the way a company is organised
Name the typical departments of a company and the IT systems each one uses (ERP, CRM and others)
Compare IT and OT: their differences and, just as important, their similarities
Place the plant technologies (sensors, PLC, SCADA, MES) on the automation pyramid, and choose the right plant and business technologies for a real company
Explain why connecting IT and OT matters, what it costs, and what an end-to-end digital company gains

flowchart TB
    subgraph IT["<b>IT</b> (the city hall)"]
        ERP["ERP, CRM, BI<br>(registers, taxes,<br>service desk)"]
    end
    subgraph OT["<b>OT</b> (the infrastructure)"]
        PLANT["Sensors, PLC, SCADA<br>(water plant, power<br>station, traffic lights)"]
    end
    ERP <-- "orders down,<br>data up" --> PLANT

The arrow in the middle is the whole unit. Lessons 1 and 2 are about the two boxes; lesson 3 is about the arrow.

Lessons¶

#	Lesson	What it covers
1	What is digitalisation	Digitisation, digitalisation and digital transformation; how they change a company; IT and OT for the first time
2	Industry 4.0 and IT systems	The four industrial revolutions; departments, ERP and CRM; IT and OT in depth
3	Plant, business and IT–OT	The automation pyramid with a real plant in Mallorca, business technologies, connecting IT and OT, end-to-end digitalisation
4	Deliverable 1 · IT/OT X-ray	What you hand in, who writes what, how it is assessed, the defence

What you are graded on¶

The seven assessment criteria of the unit's learning outcome, the lessons that train each one, and the part of Deliverable 1 where you show it.

Criterion	Official wording, in English	Lessons	Deliverable 1
a)	What the concept of digitalisation consists of has been described.	What is digitalisation · Industry 4.0 and IT systems	Group part: introduction
b)	The implementation of digital technology has been related to the organisation of companies.	What is digitalisation	Section A
c)	The differences and similarities between IT and OT environments have been established.	What is digitalisation · Industry 4.0 and IT systems	Group part: IT vs OT comparison
d)	The typical company departments that can make up IT environments have been identified.	Industry 4.0 and IT systems	Section A
e)	The typical technologies of digitalisation in the plant and in the business have been selected.	Plant, business and IT–OT	Section B (plant) and Section A (business)
f)	The importance of the connection between IT and OT environments has been analysed.	Plant, business and IT–OT	Section C
g)	The advantages of digitalising an industrial company end to end have been analysed.	Plant, business and IT–OT	Section D

There is no exam. The unit is assessed through Deliverable 1 (70%: your own section, your defence and the group part) and the class activities handed in on Classroom in sessions 1 to 3 (30%). The rules are on the course project page.