Turn Your Holiday Shutdown Into a PROFINET Network Health Opportunity
Dec 8th 2025
December is when smart plants prevent January emergencies
Every December, the same conversation happens in manufacturing facilities across North America:
"We'll be shut down for the holidays anyway. Should we do something with the network while we're down?"
The answer is yes. But not just "something"—there's a strategic way to use your holiday shutdown that prevents the worst-case scenario: starting up in January only to discover a critical network issue that takes your line back down.
We've seen it happen. A food processing plant in the Midwest came back from Christmas break to find their PROFINET network throwing intermittent errors. What should have been a smooth restart turned into a three-day troubleshooting nightmare. The cable that had been slowly degrading finally crossed the threshold during the cold snap while the building sat unheated.
Cost of waiting until January: $780,000 in lost production.
Cost of checking it during December shutdown: Four hours of planned maintenance.
The Window You Already Have
Here's what makes holiday shutdowns different from your typical maintenance window: you actually have time.
During scheduled quarterly maintenance, you're racing the clock. Every hour the line is down costs money. You're focused on the absolute essentials—replace what's broken, verify what's critical, get back to production.
But during holiday shutdown? You have days, sometimes weeks. The pressure is off. Your team isn't rushed. You can actually be thorough.
This is your chance to do the network maintenance that never makes it onto the regular schedule.
What Actually Needs Your Attention
Not everything. You're not rebuilding your network during the holidays. But there are five critical checks that take minimal time during shutdown and prevent maximum pain in January.
1. Cable Health Reality Check
Your PROFINET cables degrade constantly. The cables that were "fine" in March might be struggling by December. Cable wear from vibration, EMC exposure, and mechanical stress is one of the most common causes of PROFINET instability (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International, PROFINET Installation Guideline).
If you have PROmesh P switches with cable quality monitoring, pull up the Q-values right now. Look for anything in yellow or red status. That's your replacement list for holiday maintenance.
Don't have continuous monitoring? Use a handheld tester like the PROlinetest during shutdown to spot-check critical cables. Focus on:
- Cables in high-flex applications (robot arms, moving gantries)
- Cables exposed to temperature extremes
- Cables near EMC interference sources (VFDs, welding equipment)
- Any cable that's been in service 5+ years
Time investment: 2-3 hours to check and document
Potential savings: One prevented cable failure = $260,000 average downtime cost (Aberdeen Group, 2024)
2. The Topology Truth Test
When was the last time you verified your network topology map matched reality?
If you're like most facilities, someone made changes six months ago and forgot to update the documentation. Or there's no documentation at all—just tribal knowledge scattered across three maintenance techs' heads.
Holiday shutdown is perfect for running PROscan® Active V2 PROFINET topology software and seeing what's actually connected. Compare it to your official diagram. Fix the gaps.
Why this matters in January: When something goes wrong during restart, you need to know exactly what's connected and where. Treasure hunting during an emergency is expensive.
Time investment: 1-2 hours for network scan and documentation update
Benefit: Troubleshooting time reduced from hours to minutes
3. Firmware Updates You've Been Postponing
You know those firmware updates your switches and monitoring tools have been nagging you about? The ones you keep postponing because you can't risk disruption during production?
December is update time.
Newer firmware versions fix bugs, improve stability, and often add features you didn't even know you needed. But updating during production is risky—what if something breaks?
During shutdown, that risk is zero. Update, test, validate. If something goes sideways, you have time to troubleshoot without production pressure.
Best practice: Update non-production test environment first (if you have one). Let it run for a day. If stable, update production network.
Time investment: 1-2 hours depending on network size
Risk mitigation: Finding firmware issues during shutdown vs. during January production restart
4. The Configuration Backup You Don't Have
Be honest: when did you last backup your switch configurations?
If your answer is "I'm not sure" or "never," you're one hardware failure away from a nightmare scenario. Modern industrial switches hold their config in memory. If that switch dies, you're rebuilding configuration from scratch—or worse, from memory of how things used to work.
During holiday shutdown, backup everything:
- Every managed switch configuration
- Every diagnostic tool setup
- Every monitoring system threshold and alert rule
- Every device IP assignment
Store it somewhere safe. Document the backup date. Sleep better in January.
Time investment: 30-60 minutes
Value: Potentially saving days of reconfiguration work
5. Network Load Baseline for 2025 Planning
Your production demands are growing. You've probably added devices this year—another HMI here, a vision system there, more sensors everywhere.
Is your network keeping up?
Use the shutdown to check network load data. If you have PROmesh switches, pull the utilization reports. Look for ports running consistently above 70% (Siemens, PROFINET System Description). That's your warning that capacity is becoming an issue.
Planning for 2025 means knowing where you need network expansion before you're in crisis mode.
Time investment: 1 hour for data review and analysis
Strategic value: Prevents mid-year emergency network upgrades
The January Insurance Policy
Think of holiday network maintenance as insurance against January disasters.
You're not fixing things that are broken (though if you find something broken, obviously fix it). You're finding things that are about to break and addressing them while you have time.
The facilities that do this consistently have something in common: their January restarts are boring. No surprises. No emergency calls. Just smooth, predictable operation.
The facilities that skip it? They're the ones calling us at 2 AM on January 3rd.
Your December Network Checklist
Here's your actionable plan for the next two weeks:
Before Shutdown (This Week):
- ☐ Review cable quality data from monitoring systems
- ☐ Identify cables showing degradation (yellow/red status)
- ☐ Order replacement cables if needed
- ☐ Schedule team availability for maintenance day
During Shutdown (Week of Dec 23-27):
- ☐ Replace degraded cables
- ☐ Run network topology scan (PROscan® Active V2)
- ☐ Update network documentation
- ☐ Apply firmware updates to switches/diagnostic tools
- ☐ Backup all device configurations
- ☐ Review network load data
- ☐ Test all changes before power-down
- ☐ Document everything you did
Before Restart (First Week of January):
- ☐ Power up network before full production restart
- ☐ Verify all devices connect properly
- ☐ Check cable quality values post-restart
- ☐ Confirm monitoring systems are active
- ☐ Review alert configurations
- ☐ Brief operations team on any changes
The Tools That Make This Easy
You can do all of this with basic handheld testers and manual documentation. But if you want to be efficient about it, the right tools make a massive difference:
For cable health monitoring: PROmesh P switches continuously track Q-values so you know exactly which cables need attention before they fail.
For topology mapping: PROscan® Active V2 automatically discovers and maps your network, comparing current state to documented state in minutes instead of hours.
For permanent monitoring: Our INspektors® (PROFIBUS/PROFINET/EtherNet/IP/ASi/EMC) along with the PROmanage® software track everything 24/7, giving you historical data that shows trends you'd otherwise miss.
These aren't nice-to-haves anymore. They're the difference between proactive maintenance and expensive surprises.
Don't Wait Until January to Find Out
The worst time to discover a network problem is during January startup when you're under pressure to get production running.
The best time is during December shutdown when you have time to fix it properly.
Most plants do some equipment maintenance during holiday shutdown—lubricate this, inspect that, replace these filters. Your network deserves the same attention. It's not less critical than your mechanical systems. In modern manufacturing, it IS your critical system.
Four hours of December maintenance can prevent thousands of dollars and days of January downtime.
The question isn't whether you can afford to do this.
It's whether you can afford not to.
Need Help With Your Holiday Network Maintenance?
Our team is available through the holidays for both planned maintenance support and emergency calls (though we'd much rather help you prevent the emergencies).
Schedule a consultation: We can review your network health data and create a focused maintenance plan for your December shutdown.
Emergency support: If you do run into issues during holiday restart, we're here. +1 (678) 880-6910 or support@indusolamerica.com
Download our checklist: Holiday Network Maintenance Checklist - Print it, post it, use it.