The Site Selection Checklist Every Operations Leader Needs Before Expanding

Before choosing your next facility, you need a single, practical checklist. Start by clarifying why you’re expanding—capacity, cost, talent, risk, or market access—and align stakeholders on shared criteria and weights. Define non-negotiables, rank trade-offs, and assess labor, logistics, taxes, incentives, and total cost of doing business for each site. Finally, build timelines, risk plans, and decision gates so you can move fast and confidently.

Key Takeaways

• Clarify the core business drivers for expansion and document a ranked business case to guide all site decisions and trade-offs.

• Align cross-functional stakeholders on a single, weighted evaluation checklist, responsibilities, decision gates, and approval path.

• Define hard non-negotiables (size, utilities, zoning, access) and explicit trade-offs to quickly disqualify misfit sites.

• Rigorously evaluate local labor markets: skills availability, wages, commuting patterns, long-term pipeline, and training partners.

• Build a standardized total-cost model per site (taxes, incentives, regulatory and hidden costs) and compare like-for-like.

The Site Selection Checklist Every Operations Leader: Clarify Business Drivers for Site Selection

The Site Selection Checklist Every Operations Leader: Before evaluating locations, incentives, or real estate, clarify the core business drivers behind the search.

Define the primary objective: capacity constraints, specialized talent, proximity to customers, supply chain redesign, structural cost reduction, or regional expansion. Decide whether growth, operational risk, or geographic strategy is the dominant motive.

Document the “why” in a concise business case that ranks priorities and spells out trade-offs between cost, risk, and speed. Use it to discard sites that don’t support long-term needs.

Align Stakeholders on One Site Checklist

Bring operations, HR, finance, legal, and real estate into one working group and build a single checklist together.

Assign owners for data gathering, financial modeling, labor analysis, risk review, and final recommendations.

Agree on evaluation criteria and weights and document definitions. Share timelines, decision gates, and approvals upfront. Give the team budgets, tools, and executive access so recommendations are comparable and defensible.

Define Non-Negotiables and Trade-Offs for Sites

Separate what you must have from what you can trade.

Non-negotiables that can instantly disqualify a site include:

• minimum square footage

• essential utilities/connectivity

• load-bearing capacity

• access/egress requirements

• zoning that supports current and future use

Then list trade-offs you can balance (airport distance, proximity to customers/suppliers, labor catchment, amenities for recruiting). Rank them and revisit as strategy or market conditions shift.

Build and Weight Your Site Selection Checklist

Create a structured way to compare viable sites.

List criteria that support your strategy: cost profile, supply chain connectivity, regulatory climate, risk exposure, scalability. Assign weights based on impact.

Use a cross-functional team to agree on scoring scales. Build a decision matrix: score each site, multiply by weights, total results. Document assumptions and adjust weights as new data appears.

Evaluate Labor and Workforce for Each Site

Pressure-test the biggest variable: people.

Map how many workers with your required skills exist within the commuting shed. Compare occupational mix, unemployment by occupation, and wage levels to see staffing feasibility.

Look at 5–10 year trends: is the talent pool growing, aging, or shrinking? Review educational attainment and the depth of pipelines for engineers, technicians, and supervisors.

Inventory community colleges, universities, and vocational programs that can support training, apprenticeships, and upskilling for long-term stability.

Compare Site Selection Costs, Taxes, and Incentives

Translate each site into hard dollars.

Build a full tax model: corporate income, property, sales, and industry-specific levies. Layer incentives (abatements, credits, grants) but discount them for risk, timing, and performance conditions.

Match minimum investment and job-creation thresholds to your real plans so you don’t chase benefits you can’t capture.

Dig into hidden costs: compliance mandates, permitting, environmental remediation, recurring local fees. Compare total cost of doing business using standardized, multi-year scenarios and choose where the net present cost advantage is defensible.

Assess Logistics, Infrastructure, and Community Quality

Confirm the site can move people, products, and data efficiently and support a stable workforce.

Evaluate access: highways, ports, rail, airports, last-mile carriers, and real-world transit times.

Assess utilities: power reliability/redundancy, broadband speed/latency, water/wastewater, waste handling, and expansion capacity. Review docks, yard space, trailer parking, and circulation.

Assess community quality: labor availability, commuting options, housing affordability, schools, childcare, healthcare, and safety—because these drive retention. Confirm education/training partners for your future pipeline.

Plan Risks, Timelines, and Make the Final Site Decision

Turn a promising location into an executable decision.

Build a detailed project plan with timelines, milestones, dependencies, and contingencies for selection, build-out, and relocation.

Negotiate with local authorities and property owners for incentives, infrastructure commitments, and lease/purchase terms aligned to ROI thresholds.

Weigh finalists against objectives, risk profile, and scalability. Lock KPIs for cost, uptime, service levels, talent, and ramp-up. Build an integration plan to connect the new site to current operations and engage employees through the transition.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Are the 6 Things Included in the Checklist During Site Selection?

Six essentials: labor market strength, operational considerations, total cost of doing business, community/quality-of-life fit, risk and strategic factors, and critical needs versus trade-offs.

What Are the Requirements for Site Selection?

Clear objectives, aligned stakeholders, defined success metrics, a cross-functional team, data-driven criteria (labor, infrastructure, costs, incentives, regulations), site visits, local engagement, and validated assumptions.

What Is Site Selection in Operations Management?

A structured process to choose the best location by weighing labor, infrastructure, transport, utilities, taxes, incentives, and market access against strategy and costs—improving efficiency, recruiting, and resilience.

What Are Important Considerations When Selecting a Site?

Customer proximity, labor availability/cost, transportation access, operating expenses, regulations, incentives, utilities reliability, environmental impact, supply chain clustering, disaster/political risk, community fit, scalability, tech infrastructure, and timeline constraints.