July 31, 2025 Application of Industrial Switches in Industrial IoT Projects in the Secondary Water Supply Industry

In the wave of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the secondary water supply industry is undergoing a silent transformation. In the past, water quality monitoring in residential pump rooms relied on manual inspections, and equipment failures were often discovered only after water supply disruptions occurred. Energy consumption management was more like an "esoteric art." Today, through IoT networks built with industrial switches, pressure sensors capture real-time fluctuations in pipeline water pressure, water quality monitors upload residual chlorine and turbidity data every five minutes, and intelligent algorithms dynamically adjust pump frequencies based on peak water usage periods. These scenarios have moved from laboratories to reality, becoming a "digital moat" for urban water supply safety.

1. The "IoT Dilemma" in the Secondary Water Supply Industry: Why Are Industrial Switches Needed?

1.1 Network Reliability: The "Lifeline" of Water Supply Safety

Water supply safety is the bottom line for people's livelihoods, and network interruptions can trigger a chain reaction: A 10-minute delay in pressure sensor data may lead to pipeline bursts; failure to promptly alert on water quality exceedances may trigger public health incidents. Industrial switches ensure "uninterrupted connectivity" through the following technologies:

Redundant Power Supplies: Dual power input design with automatic switching between primary and backup power sources.

Link Aggregation: Binding multiple physical links into a logical link to increase bandwidth while adding redundancy.

Ring Network Self-Healing: When a link fails, the network can automatically switch paths within 50 ms (e.g., supported by the STP/RSTP protocols in the USR-ISG series).

1.2 Protocol Fragmentation: The Integration Challenge of Incompatible Device "Languages"

The secondary water supply system involves dozens of devices, including PLCs, sensors, smart water meters, and video surveillance systems, with protocol incompatibility being the biggest obstacle to IoT integration. A water utility group once attempted to connect devices from different manufacturers using ordinary switches, resulting in a 20% data parsing error rate due to the mixed use of Modbus RTU and TCP protocols. The value of industrial switches lies in:

Multi-Protocol Support: Built-in Modbus TCP, OPC UA, Profinet, and other industrial protocol conversion functions.

VLAN Isolation: Dividing business networks through virtual local area networks to avoid protocol conflicts.

Custom Port Mapping: Flexibly adapting to non-standard protocols of older devices (e.g., proprietary protocols of some domestic water meters).

1.3 Environmental Challenges: The Gap from "Laboratory" to "Pump Room"

The environment in secondary water supply pump rooms is a "litmus test" for industrial equipment: Humid air accelerates metal corrosion, electromagnetic interference from motor operation causes frequent packet loss in ordinary switches, and high summer temperatures lead to equipment overheating and shutdowns. In a renovation project in an old residential area, commercial switches had a failure rate of 35% after three months of deployment, while replacing them with industrial-grade switches (e.g., the USR-ISG series) resulted in a stable device online rate of over 99%. The core differences are:

Protection Level: Industrial switches typically have an IP40 or higher protection rating, with far superior dust and water resistance compared to commercial devices.

Electromagnetic Interference Resistance: Passing EMC Level 3 certification to withstand strong electromagnetic pulses during motor start-stop operations.

Wide Temperature Design: Supporting an operating range of -40°C to 75°C to adapt to climatic differences across regions.

2. Typical Application Scenarios: How Do Industrial Switches "Solve practical problems"?

Scenario 1: Remote Monitoring and Intelligent Scheduling—Making "Unattended Pump Rooms" Possible

In a large community in Chengdu, industrial switches connect PLCs, pressure sensors, and flow meters in 15 pump rooms. Through an industrial Ethernet ring network, all data is real-time aggregated to a cloud platform, where AI algorithms dynamically adjust pump frequencies based on peak and off-peak water usage periods. After project implementation:

Energy Optimization: Electricity expenses decreased by 25%, avoiding waste from "over-sizing."

Labor Liberation: The number of inspection personnel was reduced from 10 to 2, and equipment status can be checked anytime via a mobile app.

Response Acceleration: Fault alerts changed from "post-notification" to "pre-warning," with response times shortened from 2 hours to 15 minutes.

Scenario 2: Water Quality Safety Early Warning—From "Manual Sampling Inspection" to "Real-Time Protection"

Water quality safety is a core pain point in secondary water supply. A water utility group in Shanghai deployed residual chlorine, pH, and turbidity sensors in pump rooms, with industrial switches uploading data every five minutes to an analysis center. When residual chlorine levels drop below 0.5 mg/L, the system automatically:

Closes the outlet valve and pushes alert messages to maintenance personnel's mobile phones.

Triggers video surveillance to capture on-site images.

Records abnormal data on a blockchain for tamper-proof storage.
After implementing this solution, the water quality compliance rate increased from 92% to 99.5%, effectively avoiding water pollution risks.

Scenario 3: Equipment Predictive Maintenance—From "Scheduled Maintenance" to "On-Demand Repairs"

Traditional equipment maintenance relies on experience, often leading to "over-maintenance" or "under-maintenance." A project in Beijing connected pump vibration and temperature sensors through industrial switches, combining machine learning models to analyze equipment health status. When bearing vibration values exceed thresholds:

The system generates maintenance work orders 30 days in advance.

Maintenance personnel can selectively replace spare parts (e.g., bearings, seals).

Sudden failures causing water supply disruptions are avoided.
After project implementation, equipment failure rates decreased by 60%, and spare parts inventory costs decreased by 40%.

3. Technical Selection and Implementation Essentials: Practical Experience to Avoid "Pitfalls"

3.1 Selection Misconceptions: Don't Be Misled by "Specification Sheets"

Bandwidth is not the only criterion: Although data volume in secondary water supply is large, real-time performance and reliability are more critical. A project selected a 10-gigabit switch but experienced slow control command responses due to protocol conversion delays, ultimately switching to a gigabit switch supporting low-latency QoS strategies (e.g., the gigabit electrical + optical port combination in the USR-ISG series).

Avoid "protocol islands": Choose switches supporting multi-protocol conversion to prevent difficulties in later expansions due to vendor lock-in. For example, a water utility group initially selected a brand-specific protocol switch and had to replace all devices when integrating equipment from other manufacturers later, resulting in losses exceeding one million yuan.

Consider "hidden costs": The power consumption and heat dissipation design of industrial switches directly affect long-term operational costs. A desert project selected a high-power consumption switch, requiring additional air conditioning for cooling in summer and increasing annual electricity expenses by tens of thousands of yuan.

3.2 Deployment Strategy: The Path from "Pilot" to "Scale"

Pilot validation: Select 3-5 typical pump rooms for deployment to verify data accuracy, communication stability, and compatibility with existing systems. For example, a project discovered compatibility issues between a brand of sensors and switches during the pilot phase and avoided risks in large-scale deployments by timely replacements.

Phased expansion: Optimize the solution based on pilot experience, prioritizing renovations for pump rooms with high failure rates and high energy consumption before gradually covering entire regions.

Ecosystem integration: Connect to government smart water platforms for data sharing and collaborative scheduling. For example, a project uploaded data to a municipal platform through industrial switches, enabling real-time access to surrounding pipeline pressures and optimizing pump scheduling strategies.

3.3 Security Protection: Don't Let "Vulnerabilities" Become Time Bombs

Secondary water supply data involves people's livelihood safety, and network attacks can have severe consequences. A project once had pump control parameters altered by hackers due to unenabled access control on switches, causing abnormal pipeline pressures. Industrial switches must be configured with:

Firewalls: Filtering illegal access requests.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS): Real-time monitoring of abnormal traffic.

Data Encryption: End-to-end encryption of sensitive data (e.g., water quality parameters).

Regular Updates: Timely repair of security vulnerabilities (e.g., the USR-ISG series supports remote firmware upgrades).

4. USR-ISG Series: A "Practical" Industrial Switch Case Study

Among numerous industrial switches, the USR-ISG series is favored in the secondary water supply industry for its "robust performance + ease of use." Taking a project by a provincial water utility group as an example:

Scenario Requirements: Connecting over 200 pump rooms, involving over 10 device protocols, with a network self-healing time requirement of <50 ms.

Solution: Adopting USR-ISG series gigabit ring network switches, supporting STP/RSTP ring network protocols, equipped with 4 gigabit optical ports + 8 gigabit electrical ports to meet multi-device access needs.

Implementation Results: The network self-healing time was measured at 42 ms, with a protocol conversion error rate of <0.1%, and a 60% reduction in three-year operational and maintenance costs.

Its core advantages include:

"User-friendly" configuration: Quick completion of VLAN division, port mapping, and other operations through a web interface without requiring professional engineers.

"Simplified" maintenance: Supporting the SNMP protocol for integration into existing network management platforms for unified monitoring.

"Durable" design: Metal casing + fanless heat dissipation to adapt to high-dust environments in pump rooms.

5. Future Trends: The "Evolution Direction" of Industrial Switches

5.1 AI Empowerment: From "Data Transmission" to "Intelligent Decision-Making"

Next-generation industrial switches will integrate edge computing capabilities for local data preprocessing and preliminary analysis. For example, machine learning models can identify abnormal vibration patterns in pumps in real-time, triggering alerts directly at the switch level to reduce cloud latency.

5.2 5G + TSN: Creating a "Deterministic Network"

The combination of 5G's low latency and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) will achieve "millisecond-level" response times for water supply control commands. Laboratory tests show that a 5G + TSN solution can reduce pump start-stop control delays from 100 ms to 10 ms, meeting high-precision scheduling requirements.

5.3 Digital Twins: From the "Physical World" to "Virtual Mirrors"

Data collected by industrial switches can be used to build digital twin models of pump rooms, simulating operational states under different conditions. For example, testing new scheduling strategies through digital twins before renovations to avoid risks in actual deployments.

The "Invisible Value" of Industrial Switches

In the secondary water supply industry, the value of industrial switches is often underestimated—they are not just "pipelines" for data transmission but the "cornerstone" of smart transformation. When we turn on the tap late at night, what flows out is not just clear water but also the peace of mind safeguarded by IIoT technology. And behind all this is the silent operation of industrial switches in pump rooms: enduring humidity, high temperatures, and electromagnetic interference while remaining stable; connecting dozens of devices while ensuring "unobstructed" data flow; safeguarding water supply safety without ever "stealing the spotlight." This, perhaps, is the deepest "value philosophy" of industrial switches.

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