Lakehaven Water and Sewer District Case Study

Background

Lakehaven Water and Sewer District’s geographic information system (GIS) program had been in place for decades and needed modernization. Lakehaven sought a better understanding of its existing GIS program to make strategic improvements that would help the district meet future needs while reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency.

The district also needed to improve utilization of Cityworks (now Trimble Unity Maintain) among its operations staff. Although Cityworks had likewise been in place for many years, the project lacked leadership, resulting in inefficiencies and underutilization. Moreover, Lakehaven was operating on legacy technology and was struggling to keep pace with evolving industry standards.

Challenge

Like many public sector organizations, Lakehaven has a limited amount of funds it can allocate each year to advance technology and programs — and GIS and Cityworks were no exception. In addition, the GIS supervisor hired in 2020 inherited a long list of backlogged items and projects, creating resource strains.

Collaborative strategic planning was rarely practiced in the district. Individual departments conducted planning efforts within their own areas and rarely communicated with other departments to identify opportunities for organizational improvement. Additionally, the IT division maintained extremely strict policies and security standards. This rigor, while necessary, had stifled and limited staff aspirations to innovate processes and procedures.

Solution

Woolpert partnered with Lakehaven to conduct a comprehensive assessment of its GIS, which consisted of three tasks:

1. GIS Health Check
2. Vision and Assessment
3. GIS Roadmap 

The project began with a GIS Health Check, during which Woolpert’s GIS subject matter expert and project manager led a remote workshop. In this session, they evaluated the district’s existing Esri platform, including licenses, services, applications, and infrastructure.

Building on the findings from the Health Check, Woolpert facilitated GIS Vision and Assessment workshops with district stakeholders. Six workshop sessions were held on Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, 2022. Approximately 25 attendees were divided into functional groups based on department and responsibilities.

With a clear understanding of both the current and desired future states, Woolpert developed a GIS Roadmap. The roadmap aimed to analyze the current use of GIS at Lakehaven, identify goals to optimize its GIS potential, and address gaps between the current state and future vision. It also outlined tasks, resource requirements, and a timeline to achieve the identified goals and objectives for implementing GIS at Lakehaven.

Outcome

Woolpert delivered three key documents to the Lakehaven Water and Sewer District:

1. GIS Health Check Document
2. GIS Vision and Assessment Presentation
3. GIS Roadmap Document

The GIS Health Check Document summarized the district’s current GIS environment and detailed its components. This analysis established a baseline that framed the district’s current capabilities and identified areas for improvement. Through in-depth discussions with the district, Woolpert assessed the overall health of the GIS and gathered the necessary information to envision the system’s future state.

The GIS Vision and Assessment Presentation provided a clear understanding of the district’s future GIS aspirations by highlighting key takeaways from the workshop sessions, including desired business requirements, data utilization, and system integrations. The presentation also addressed organizational capacity to ensure the district had the appropriate staffing and resources to support its GIS needs.

Finally, the GIS Roadmap Document offered specific recommendations for software and hardware upgrades, system integration strategies, and staffing requirements, with an emphasis on aligning these initiatives with the district’s goals. Additionally, the roadmap included proposed timelines and resource allocations to promote a structured and efficient implementation process. Key recommendations within the roadmap were grouped into six categories:

1. Esri (and related) software portfolio management
2. Hardware management
3. Enterprise application and system integration
4. GIS staffing
5. High-level business process improvement
6. Training and education

Benefits

Woolpert’s work with Lakehaven represents a true transformation — from a reactive, outdated GIS environment to a modern, strategic platform. The three deliverables provided by Woolpert give the district a clear path forward, enabling it to improve GIS capabilities, optimize data management and analysis, and enhance collaboration across departments.

As part of this modernization effort, Lakehaven has begun a significant shift from legacy ArcMap desktop workflows to web-based GIS applications. This transition empowers staff to access authoritative GIS content directly through intuitive web maps and apps aligned with their daily operational needs. By reducing reliance on desktop software and moving toward a centralized, browser-based environment, the district is improving accessibility, streamlining updates, and supporting more consistent, districtwide use of GIS information.

Looking ahead to 2026, Woolpert will assist Lakehaven in preparing the GIS environment for additional integrations and advanced capabilities. This includes laying the groundwork for technologies such as VertiGIS and other modern solutions that will extend the use of the new platform for asset management, planning, analysis, and public engagement. These next steps will ensure Lakehaven continues to build on its modernized foundation, enabling richer visualization tools, more efficient workflows, and greater flexibility to adopt future innovations.