Case Study: Louisville Gas & Electric achieves seamless migration of MicroStation designs into GE Smallworld with Safe Software's FME

Louisville Gas & Electric - Customer Case Study

Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) is a Fortune 500 utility serving over a million electric and gas customers. When LG&E chose GE Smallworld for corporate asset management, designers remained on MicroStation for complex drafting, creating a gap between design and record-keeping. The company needed a way to migrate standardized MicroStation DGN design files (electrical, gas and cadastral) into the GE Smallworld database while preserving design fidelity and enforcing data standards.

LG&E engaged Safe Software to build an automated translation workflow using FME, MicroStation and GE Smallworld. A “Digital Standard” (two CSV files) defined layer-to-object mappings and QA rules; data are converted to an interim FME format, QA’d, rubber-sheeted to match Smallworld coordinates via connectivity vectors, then translated and imported into Smallworld. The solution produced a repeatable, standards-driven migration that filtered invalid features, preserved CAD detail and consolidated design and records into the corporate GIS, improving data quality and efficiency.

Louisville Gas & Electric