Since 2006, Lawson-Fisher Associates has been helping the City of Mishawaka maintain a city-wide GIS system focused on facility management and maintenance. At the outset, LFA facilitated the transfer of all paper maps for the storm, sanitary, and combined sanitary sewer networks into a digital (AutoCAD) format. The resulting AutoCAD files were imported into a GIS (ESRI) geodatabase and spatially referenced using aerial imagery. Since then, LFA has assisted the City with writing project specifications for as-built reporting, expansion of the original geodatabase to include maintenance and sanitary sewer lateral information, infrastructure inspection information, and reconciliation of as-built data for completed construction projects since the GIS system was brought on-line.

The City of Mishawaka’s commitment to provide premier service to its residents and businesses coupled with the continued involvement of LFA with the GIS system has served the City well and the result is a consistently high level of infrastructure awareness for the City. This level of awareness helps the City to solve current problems, implement new ideas and projects, and maximize the benefit of infrastructure spending. Dedication to this effort and quality of work has resulted in LFA functioning as an extension of the City’s Engineering and Wastewater Departments.