Siting

Siting involves the application and execution of a formal methodology for the identification of optimal system location requirements for individual programs and their components.  It is designed to optimize system performance and minimize cost, schedule, and environmental impacts. Well-executed siting, will also identify defensible locations in support of the Environmental Impact Analysis Process (EIAP) for compliance with NEPA.

Two basic steps are involved: (1) the development of exclusionary and evaluative criteria; and (2) the application of these criteria to a set of potential locations or sites.  A series of baseline siting criteria are developed that meet tactical, technical, operability, and policy/legal considerations:. These constitute the system requirements, or constraints, that must be met for effective operations.  Alternative locations or sites that fail to meet any one exclusionary criteria are eliminated from further consideration.

The remaining locations or sites are then evaluated for preferred conditions that will enhance the effectiveness or minimize the impact of system operations. These evaluative criteria cannot eliminate alternative locations or sites when considered individually, but when considered together may indicate performance that is better or worse that that of other alternatives.  Evaluative criteria may be weighted to reflect their relative importance. Both exclusionary and evaluative criteria are derived from objective criteria.  We can help you:

·         Develop objective exclusionary and evaluative criteria, including criteria statements, and performance measures

·         Validate the accuracy and currency of data

·         Conduct site visits to confirm the accuracy of the data

·         Design databases to store, sort, and retrieve the data

·         Formulate your preferences about the evaluative criteria, weight the evaluative criteria

·         Conduct the analysis, find the important differences between alternative locations or sites, and perform sensitivity analyses to reveal how sensitive the final scoring and ranking is to preference changes

·        Produce the area narrowing and site selection reports

·         Coordinate and brief the results to the client

The approach can also incorporate both quantitative and qualitative criteria, describe the alternative locations and sites using probabilities (to incorporate uncertainty), lets you organize the evaluative criteria into a hierarchy showing how the criteria relate to your overall goal, helps you assess your preferences graphically, and allows interactions between the evaluative criteria.