19 August 2004                       www.strategosinc.com

Long-Range Site Planning

Seeing Through The Fog of The Future

Companies may occupy a site for decades and, occasionally, centuries. Through such periods, processes, products and the external environment drastically change. But the buildings and features are (mostly) permanent. The challenge for facility planners is to design permanent sites for an unclear and uncertain future.

Site planning involves strategic issues that affect a company's success-- fundamentally; on many levels; in many ways. Facilities can be a strategic asset or a millstone.

Fog and uncertainty are not good reasons to forego site planning. There are a surprising number of known factors (or, at least, probabilities) if the issues are framed properly. Moreover, there are ways to cope with much of the uncertainty.

Long-range site planning requires systematic, analytical methods. It also requires a personal temperament that is comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty. Chapter 6 from my book, "Facilities & Workplace Design," provides the methods; the reader must provide the temperament. This book is available as a free PDF download.

Our new web pages on Site Planning also have examples of successful site plans that used our methods. I hope you find these web pages and my book useful.

All The Best,

Quarterman Lee

qlee@strategosinc.com

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