From Park Assets to Operational Insight
“Don't make the device a barrier.”
— Alex Bryan, City of Akron Core GIS Team
Before the City of Akron could strengthen maintenance planning for its parks, it needed to answer a fundamental question: What assets do we have, and where are they?
Trash cans, benches, drinking fountains, shelters, and other facilities support daily park operations, but the city lacked a complete inventory. At Firestone Park, GIS Technician Robert Iseman and park staff could not reliably say how many trash cans the park contained or where each one stood.
Working with Alex Bryan, who leads Akron's core GIS team, Iseman developed a field collection workflow using the Bad Elf Flex Mini Extreme, an iPad Mini, and Esri ArcGIS Field Maps. The project documented park infrastructure while giving the GIS team firsthand knowledge of the places and assets it supports.
A practical need within an established GIS program
Akron's GIS program began in public utilities more than 20 years ago and now supports departments across the city. Its infrastructure includes approximately 25 geodatabases, Esri ArcGIS Enterprise, and ArcGIS Online. Public works responsibilities span sanitation, highway maintenance, parks maintenance, building maintenance, and street cleaning, including snow and ice operations.
The parks inventory addressed a specific need within that larger system. Akron uses Cityworks for enterprise asset management, and staff need identifiable assets against which to write work orders. Documenting locations also creates a foundation for deciding which attributes to track, such as materials, makes, models, and age, and how to organize future maintenance.
Bryan and Iseman built the supporting geodatabases and collection workflow around those operational questions. The objective was straightforward: give departments information they can use.
A workflow designed for the field
Before heading outdoors, Iseman configured collection forms in Field Maps. At each asset, he selected the appropriate category from a dropdown menu, recorded its location, and moved to the next feature. Preparing the forms in advance kept field entry focused and consistent.
The compact Flex Mini Extreme receiver and iPad Mini made the equipment easy to carry between locations. Bryan emphasized that portability reduced the effort of taking larger legacy equipment into the field. What began as an opportunity to introduce Iseman to park supervisors and collection procedures quickly became a project he could carry out by himself.
For positioning corrections, Iseman connected to the Ohio Department of Transportation's real-time kinematic (RTK) network, which the team reported using at no charge. He described the setup as straightforward and reported keeping accuracy within approximately three inches for most of his field collection. He also adjusted collection tolerances when conditions required it, including in heavily wooded areas.
10,000 features and a deeper understanding of the city
Over three months, Iseman visited 150 locations and collected 10,000 points, lines, and polygons. He completed that work in two-to-four-hour blocks, approximately twice a week, using the Flex Mini Extreme with RTK corrections.
The resulting inventory gave the team a documented view of infrastructure that previously lacked reliable counts and locations. It also built knowledge that a map alone cannot provide: how to reach a park, where to park a vehicle, what an asset looks like, and what crews may encounter when they service it.
“We were there. He knows what these things look like. He knows where they are,” Bryan explained.
For Iseman, the work also offered an opportunity to become familiar with Akron. Walking its parks, sports fields, and paths helped him understand the city beyond the screen. That experience now informs how he interprets and supports its asset data.
Adoption beyond parks
The parks project forms part of a broader use of Bad Elf GPS receivers within the City of Akron. Bryan reported that the communications division already uses Bad Elf Flex Minis to collect infrastructure such as handholes and fiber lines. Traffic engineering is preparing to collect signalized intersections, crosswalks, poles, and related assets, with the appropriate GPS tools available to its field team.
Iseman also identified a potential watershed project to map invasive and endangered species. That future workflow could add tablet photographs to location records, expanding the information available for each observation.
Keep the technology accessible
For other organizations, Bryan recommends experimenting, finding workflows that fit their operations, and asking the GIS community for help. Iseman adds that the right accessories make field collection easier.
“Don't make the device a barrier,” Bryan advised.
The City of Akron's experience demonstrates the value of that approach. With a prepared collection form, portable positioning equipment, and direct field observation, one GIS technician helped turn an incomplete park inventory into usable asset information.
The result supports a clearer understanding of what the city maintains and helps its teams serve their constituents.
That's powerful operational insight.