Introduction
Bluebird Fiber is a regional fiber infrastructure provider serving businesses, hospitals, banks, and other organizations across the Midwest. With an emphasis on reliable networks and hands-on customer support, the company operates an expanding fiber footprint and two data centers. As Bluebird’s network and ambitions grew, the company needed a more efficient way to capture, analyze, and act on spatial data. With that goal in mind, Mark McFerren, Bluebird’s GIS engineer, transformed an under-used Esri setup into a platform that now speeds field work, enables in-house construction drafting, and unlocks massive productivity gains for quoting and prospecting.
Challenge
When McFerren joined Bluebird five years ago, GIS existed at the company but was barely more than a handoff from contractors. “We were using ESRI, but really it was Collector for the field application, and we just were not using it to its fullest capabilities,” he said. The system included layers and features provided by outside vendors, but it had not been touched in years, and the schema was overly complex and poorly matched to Bluebird’s workflows. Field crews were forced to capture irrelevant attributes and wade through unwieldy forms. At the same time, core business processes—construction printing, bulk quoting for tower and prospect work, and routing within taxing districts—relied on external contractors or manual workarounds that were slow, costly, and error prone.
Bluebird faced several linked problems: inefficient and inconsistent field data capture, long turnarounds for construction prints, near-impossible manual workflows for large quoting tasks, and a lack of a single, usable toolset that non-GIS staff could adopt. The company needed a GIS approach that would be both more usable for field staff and powerful enough to support engineering, sales prospecting, and financial reporting.
Solution
McFerren built a solution that combined ArcGIS with Esri’s web and mobile tools, redesigning data schemas and user experiences to match Bluebird’s real needs. He began by simplifying the data model: “I removed tons of unnecessary fields because it makes others using it think they need to add that stuff, and it’s gonna slow you down.” He also created custom icons and symbology so field forms and map views conveyed clear, actionable information at a glance.
To close the loop between office planning and field execution, McFerren combined Experience Builder apps for desktop pre-planning with Field Maps for in-field editing. This hybrid workflow allows planners to pre-field routes on the desktop and enabled crews to make quick, targeted corrections in the field. The result is a streamlined end-to-end process that reduced wasted effort and minimized rework.
McFerren also brought traditionally outsourced tasks in-house by leveraging ArcGIS and lightweight scripting. Using ArcGIS, he began producing construction prints from fielded GIS data—labels, callouts, and all—cutting what used to be a multi-hundred-dollar contractor expense down to a 30-minute internal task. For quoting at scale, he used network analysis and cost polygons to automate route generation and cost estimation, enabling truly large batch estimates.
On the marketing side, Bluebird exports KMZ files from Esri for use on the public site. “We have a page on our website that has an interactive network map, and we attach the KMZ to it to display our network accurately,” explained Senior Marketing Analyst Mason McGill. Functionality within the Esri platform even allows Bluebird to hide sensitive metadata and selectively mask parts of the network to protect customers.
Results
The transformation delivered immediate and measurable operational gains. Fielding has become far more efficient: McFerren estimates that the new workflows “probably cut in half the amount of time it took us to walk, field and engineer a job.” For construction prints, what previously required a paid contractor and a turnaround of days can now be completed the same day in-house, shaving multiple days off builds requiring quick turn around and removing recurring contractor fees.
Perhaps the most dramatic change has been in bulk quoting and prospecting. Using network analysis and cost polygon overlays, McFerren can run routes and generate quotes for 1,000 sites in roughly an hour. “It reduced the amount of time it used to take to generate those quotes by a factor of 100.” Tasks that would have taken a week or more are now feasible in near-real time, enabling faster sales cycles and more aggressive prospecting. This capability is already being applied to recurring monthly quotes for large customers and tower lists, and Bluebird plans to bring more prospecting in-house so sales staff can make immediate “near-net” decisions on whether services can be reasonably provided.
Adoption required outreach and change management. Some field staff were initially skeptical, saying they had “done it this way for so long,” but hands-on demonstrations and quick wins helped change minds. After introducing crew members to the new workflow, McFerren often hears comments like, “Wow, this has saved me a lot of time.” As GIS usage has grown, requests for dashboards and custom views have multiplied from sales, operations, and leadership, signaling a cultural shift toward data-driven decision making.
Beyond time and cost savings, ArcGIS and the associated apps improved data accuracy for regulatory and tax reporting. McFerren now uses the platform to calculate mileage added within taxing districts—work that had been difficult or inaccurate before—ensuring Bluebird’s accounting and compliance tasks are more reliable.
Reflecting on the journey, McFerren framed his experience as an iterative skills build: “It was a lot of learning, but I feel like I’m always stacking new skills on top of old ones.” That steady accumulation of capability has converted GIS from a neglected mapping tool into a strategic engine that accelerates field operations, speeds quoting and sales, and reduces design costs—positioning Bluebird Fiber to scale its network and its business more efficiently for the future.
