Case Study: Ending Communication Failures Across 180 Remote Sites
How a Michigan county water and wastewater utility replaced slow
radio polling with edge-based Sparkplug B MQTT communications
Communication breakdowns in industrial systems aren’t just frustrating—they’re costly, disruptive, and often difficult to diagnose.
The Genesee County Drain Commissioner Division of Water & Waste Services (GCDC-WWS) in Michigan struggled with the communication slowdowns in their legacy radio polling system. Poor alarming meant operators could not reliably fine-tune the pumping stations. With 180 remote sites across 600 square miles, these delays became unacceptable.
This new case study shows you how they solved the problem.
When you start a remote pump, you expect to know right away whether it actually turned on. In the Genesee County Drain Commissioner Division of Water & Waste Services’ legacy radio polling system, that confirmation could take four to five minutes.
It was time for a more resilient, scalable system that restored confidence in critical communications. With the leadership of Terry Biederman, GCDC-WWS Assistant Director of Water, an edge-based control system became the goal.
Based on experience with previous projects, Terry began evaluating a different model built around Sparkplug B MQTT publish/subscribe communication versus the legacy polling model.
Read the complete case study to learn:
- Why traditional architectures broke down
- What problems edge devices solved
- How a scalable system led to cost savings
You'll get a practical blueprint for moving legacy communication systems to a real-time data architecture.