Multi-criteria evaluation of site selection alternatives

Methodologies are presented which can greatly aid in the site selection decision process. The site selection process is viewed as being composed of two major stages or phases. Phase I involves the application of quantitative models to identify potential locations. The results obtained from such models provide numerically optimal solutions, which can then be used to help identify feasible candidate sites. After identifying a set of candidate sites, additional factors, qualitative as well as quantitative, can be evaluated through the application of a multi-criteria decision model (Phase II). Prior to the implementation of Phase I, the solution space for the problem can be narrowed through selective screening or pruning to reduce the number of potential sites to a realistic set. During the analysis phases, one alternative may prove to be equal to the others in all respects and better in at least one aspect. This alternative is then said to dominate the others, and the analysis ends with its selection