Site selection

Site selection indicates the practice of new facility location, both for business and government. Site selection involves measuring the needs of a new project against the merits of potential locations. The practice came of age during the 20th century, as governments and corporate operations expanded to new geographies on a national and international scale.

Site selection was formalized in the 1940s and 1950s through a number of important U.S. government projects. Determining the correct location for projects important to national security, including Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Hanford Site, and the United States Air Force Academy, required a thorough evaluation process. The site selection process developed for these projects was refined and later became standard practice in the private sector. As the U.S. economy and population expanded in the post-war years, so did corporate operations. Large companies began using a formal site selection process to identify ideal locations for new corporate campuses and, in particular, manufacturing operations.

Literature on site selection theory used to look until recent years at the various issues only from a national point of view. By large, there are no international reviews to be found in these publications. In the US, a country in which industrial site selection played a role very early on, resulting in a very early search for methodical approaches, Edgar M. Hoover was one of the leading pioneers in the field of site analysis. In his book “The Location of Economic Activity”, Hoover compiled crucial criteria of industrial site selection as early as 1948 that still apply today. There were, however, some quite early attempts to combine theories of international trade with nationally oriented site theories in order to develop a site theory with an international perspective. One of these early authors was Ohlin (1952), followed by Sabathil (1969) , Moore (1978), Tesch (1980), and Goette (1994) .

Nevertheless, even to this day, this situation has only changed to some extent. Even though since the 1990s it has no longer been only major corporations that expand abroad, and any foreign direct investment results in a site selection, there are still very few well-researched studies on this topic. A specifically international site selection theory is still not discernible. Many current and more recent publications either review site decisions made by individual corporations or analyze them as reference cases. Other publications focus on a cost-specific approach largely driven by site relocations in the context of cost structure optimization within major corporations. However, these publications only rarely and at best cursorily deal with issues of construction and real estate aspects.

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