The aim of this study is to introduce real-time hardware-in-the-loop techniques (RT-HIL) to test and study different protection systems on industrial distribution networks. The advantages of this implementation consist in the possibility to correct the theoretical coordination results accordingly to the specifications of the real system conditions, including the limitations from the protective device; certainly, the proposed methodology incorporates the feature to evaluate multiple scenarios such as changes in the topology, possible contingencies, special fault cases, and equipment characterization, while thoroughly grasping the behavior or response of a protection set up. Therefore, the study achieves a more appropriate and reliable protection scheme and facilitates the coordination of abridged topologies. A selected case of study based on IEEE 242-2001 was implemented on ETAP and DSSim-PC in order to analyze and compare the standard configuration and results; after the models are validated, the electrical system is implemented on a real-time test bench. This paper also shows computational performance assessment of the RT-HIL implementation of the protection coordination system based on the standard.