San Bernardino Community College District (SBCCD) serves more than 30,000 students annually across San Bernardino Valley College, Crafton Hills College, KVCR, a TV/Radio Station, and an economic development and corporate training center. The district manages more than 100 buildings and approximately 1.5 million square feet of interior space. Managing an environment of this scale requires a strategic and forward-thinking approach to facilities operations.
SBCCD’s Facilities Planning, Sustainability & Construction team has earned numerous national and international awards for its innovative approach to facility management and sustainability. Continuing that tradition, SBCCD is now partnering with Esri Professional Services and Map I.T., an Esri ArcGIS Indoors Specialty Partner, to implement ArcGIS Indoors as part of a broader districtwide geospatial strategy.
This blog post is the first in a multi-part series that explores SBCCD’s ArcGIS Indoors and digital twin initiative, from the business decisions driving the project forward, to the on-site data collection and processing, and all the way to the final deliverables and beyond. The goal of this blog is to outline why SBCCD is implementing ArcGIS Indoors, what business challenges the district is trying to solve, its long-term goals, and other details related to project planning.
Why Is SBCCD Implementing ArcGIS Indoors?
SBCCD is implementing ArcGIS Indoors as part of a larger districtwide geospatial decision-support framework. SBCCD’s goal is to connect facilities operations, sustainability, capital planning, emergency management, asset information, and future student-facing applications within one coordinated platform.
Today, information about facilities and infrastructure is distributed across CAD files, construction drawings, spreadsheets, work-order systems, utility maps, and individual staff knowledge. While these disparate resources each serve a purpose, they do not always communicate with one another. This can make it difficult to develop a complete, common operating picture of building conditions, asset lifecycles, utilities, space utilization, and long-term investment needs.
ArcGIS Indoors enables SBCCD to organize this information spatially and visually through maps and applications that incorporate location intelligence, giving staff a common geographic framework for making faster and better-informed decisions about facilities, safety, maintenance, sustainability, capital projects, classrooms, laboratories, assets, and student support spaces.
Importantly, SBCCD views this as more than a mapping project. The district is creating the foundation for a districtwide decision-making platform that can evolve into an advanced digital twin over time.
(Example CAD floor plan)
Before GIS, How Did SBCCD Tackle These Challenges?
Before GIS, SBCCD relied on a combination of CAD drawings, scanned plans, utility maps, spreadsheets, work-order systems, construction records, site visits, and institutional knowledge.
For instance, when staff needed to locate an asset, understand a building condition, review a utility route, prepare for construction, or respond to an emergency, they often had to search through multiple systems and documents or contact several people to gather the necessary information.
This approach worked, but it was time-consuming and often reactive. It also depended heavily on individual staff knowledge, which made information difficult to maintain and transfer as projects, buildings, systems, and personnel changed.
What Are SBCCD’s Short-Term Indoor GIS and Digital Twin Goals?
The first phase of SBCCD’s ArcGIS Indoors implementation focuses on developing accurate campus basemaps, digitizing buildings, floors, rooms, and other indoor spaces, and bringing existing CAD and facility information into the ArcGIS Indoors information model. At the same time, the district is working to map foundational infrastructure such as utilities, parcels, easements, and other critical assets while capturing and validating current field conditions within the ArcGIS platform.
As the foundational data is developed, SBCCD will prioritize a range of operational and safety-related assets, including utilities, HVAC equipment, electrical infrastructure, water and gas shutoffs, fire alarm panels, AEDs, security cameras, hazardous material locations, evacuation areas, parcels, sewer laterals, and potable and reclaimed water systems. The district also plans to identify an initial operational use case that can demonstrate measurable value and help establish a roadmap for future applications.
The purpose of this first phase is to create reliable data that future applications and integrations can build upon. Of equal importance for the county is establishing clear data standards, ownership, governance, and user access, as well as training staff to effectively use and maintain the system over time.
(Example 3D BM model produced from LiDAR laser scanning)
What Is the Long-Term Vision?
SBCCD’s long-term vision is to create a coordinated digital environment that connects buildings, floors, rooms, utilities, assets, operational systems, planning information, and eventually real-time data.
That vision is already being shaped through the district’s participation in the Esri Advantage Program and its collaboration with Map I.T. Rather than attempting to define every future capability at the beginning of the project, the Advantage Program is helping SBCCD evaluate priorities, identify the highest-value use cases, establish an implementation sequence, and develop a practical districtwide geospatial roadmap. Current Advantage Program priorities include digital twins for campus buildings, sustainable campus operations, and development of a districtwide geospatial strategy.
Potential future indoor GIS use cases include:
- Integration with work order and asset management systems
- Real-time building and equipment performance
- Energy, water, sustainability, and infrastructure dashboards
- Indoor navigation and campus wayfinding
- Space utilization and classroom planning
- Emergency response and safety coordination
- Utility impact analysis and construction planning
- Accessibility analysis
- Predictive maintenance
- Integration with occupancy sensors, energy management systems, room scheduling, and other building systems
- Student learning opportunities connected to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), including GIS, sustainability, and career education
The overall goal is to allow staff to select a location on campus and understand what is there, where it is, what condition it is in, how it is performing, and how it may be affected by future decisions or emergencies.
The district is intentionally taking a phased approach to avoid starting with the most advanced or visually impressive features before establishing accurate data, clear governance, and practical operational value. Through the Esri Advantage Program, SBCCD will continue refining this roadmap as the foundational work progresses. The strategy is to first build the foundation, demonstrate measurable benefits, and then use the lessons learned and ongoing planning process to guide expansion into real-time integration, analytics, and more advanced digital twin applications.
(Example floor-aware dashboard for asset management)
Project Kick-Off and Getting Started
How does a project like this actually get started?
SBCCD took the first step by partnering with Map I.T., with support from the Esri Advantage Program, to advance the district’s broader GIS and digital transformation initiative within the planned project timeframe.
One of the first challenges is creating an accurate digital representation of the district’s existing facilities. To accomplish this, Map I.T. has completed LiDAR laser scanning and 360-degree imagery capture of all SBCCD buildings. These technologies provide highly accurate, comprehensive documentation of existing conditions and serve as the foundation for developing standardized floor plans and building information. As the collected data is processed, the resulting point clouds are being used to develop standardized BIM models that accurately represent the existing conditions of the interior spaces and selected assets. From there, the building data will be brought into the ArcGIS Indoors information model, laying the groundwork for SBCCD’s indoor mapping and digital twin environment.
LiDAR → Point Cloud → BIM → GIS → ArcGIS Indoors
While this workflow may look straightforward, each step plays an important role in creating accurate, usable, and maintainable indoor GIS data. The goal is not simply to capture what exists today, but to transform that information into a platform that supports better-informed decisions and a smarter, more connected campus.
In the next post, we’ll take a closer look at how the project was planned and what goes into collecting data across a large, multi-campus district, including coordinating access and establishing project control, capturing LiDAR and 360-degree imagery, developing BIM models, and beginning the GIS integration.
Meet the Team
Farrah Farzaneh serves as the Executive Director of Facilities Planning, Sustainability & Construction at San Bernardino Community College District (SBCCD), where she leads the transformation of campus buildings and infrastructure with a strong focus on sustainability, resilience, and long-term community impact. She oversees more than $500 million in capital improvement projects, ensuring that SBCCD’s facilities meet today’s needs while creating environments that inspire and support future generations. With more than 16 years of industry experience, Farrah has a proven track record of leading complex projects across educational, industrial, and multi-use facilities. She brings a strong focus on stakeholder collaboration, multidisciplinary leadership, sustainability, and resilient infrastructure, creating functional, environmentally conscious spaces that enhance learning and support community well-being.
Map I.T. is a land surveying, GIS, and geospatial consulting firm that leverages cutting-edge solutions to solve organizational challenges, improve decision-making, and boost operational efficiency. With extensive industry experience, we understand every phase of a project’s life cycle, from initial data collection to final deliverables, while providing ongoing support. As an Esri Business Partner and ArcGIS Indoors Specialty Partner, we specialize in GIS solutions for campus operations in K-12 schools, higher education, museums, and campuses. Zach Jaffe, PLS (SC), founder and CEO of Map I.T., brings over a decade of expertise in land surveying, GIS, and geospatial consulting. He is proficient in a wide range of data collection techniques and is dedicated to delivering impactful solutions to clients. A pioneer in integrating BIM and GIS, Zach is recognized as a thought leader in digital twin technologies, receiving the Esri AEC Hero Award in 2022 for his innovative work in the facility mapping space.
zjaffe@map-it-llc.com
