PRO Production

Workflow-grade Pro analysis with audit-ready outputs.

workflow pro

## Workflow Narrative

Market Access and Site Planning

### Who It Is For

- Retail chains evaluating expansion locations based on demand accessibility and competitive saturation.
- Healthcare networks rating candidate clinic/hospital sites for market coverage and competitive positioning.
- Franchise developers assessing new territory opportunities via catchment analysis.

### Primary User

Commercial real estate, retail operations, healthcare network planning, franchise development.

### What It Does

- Evaluates candidate site locations for commercial expansion (retail, healthcare, franchise).
- Computes drive-time catchment areas for each candidate.
- Measures demand coverage and competitive overlap positioning.
- Ranks candidates by composite score: 50% demand coverage + 25% accessibility + 25% low competitive overlap.
- Outputs ranked candidates, competitive analysis, and executive summary with decision metrics.
- Adds opportunity bands and optional market action queue output for expansion triage.

### How It Works

- For each candidate site:
- Compute demand coverage (% of demand points within max ring cost).
- Compute average distance to demand points (accessibility proxy).
- Compute competitive overlap vs existing/competitor sites (% within catchment radius).
- Existing-site baseline coverage is computed from the existing site layer, not from candidate seed sites.
- Accessibility score is normalized across the evaluated candidate set.
- Composite rank score = 0.50 × coverage + 0.25 × accessibility + 0.25 × (100 - overlap).
- **Scope boundary:** Market Access and Site Planning evaluates candidate commercial sites for expansion using drive-time access, demand coverage, and competitive positioning — it is the service-area tool for commercial decisions. Service Area Planning and Coverage Optimization (6.2) addresses public infrastructure coverage diagnostics. Emergency Accessibility Scenario Planning (6.6) simulates disrupted-network scenarios for resilience analysis. Choose this tool for commercial expansion, 6.2 for infrastructure planning, and 6.6 for emergency response planning.
- Rank candidates by composite score; classify each site as `expand_now`, `pilot`, `monitor`, or `saturated`; emit top candidates + decision gate (coverage > 70% AND overlap < 50%).

## Inputs

Parameter | Type | Required | Description
--- | --- | --- | ---
`network` | LineVector path | Required | Street/transit network for routing
`sites_existing` | PointVector path | Required | Existing own or benchmark competitive sites
`sites_candidates` | PointVector path | Required | Candidate expansion site locations
`demand_surface` | PointVector path | Required | Demand locations (customers, population centroids)
`competition_sites` | PointVector path | Optional | Competitor locations (separate from own/benchmark)
`ring_costs` | array[float] | Required | Drive-time costs for catchments (e.g., [5, 10, 15])
`catchments_output` | vector path | Required | Output drive-time catchment polygons
`overlap_analysis_output` | vector path | Required | Output competitive overlap analysis layer
`candidate_rank_csv` | path | Required | Output CSV: ranked candidates with KPIs
`executive_summary_json` | path | Required | Output JSON: market metrics and decision gate
`market_action_queue_csv` | path | Optional | Optional prioritized expansion action queue CSV

Important input roles: `sites_existing` is the incumbent baseline used for existing coverage and coverage-gain calculations. `competition_sites` is an optional separate competitor layer used for overlap pressure. If `competition_sites` is omitted, overlap falls back to `sites_existing`.

## Outputs

Output | Type | Contents
--- | --- | ---
`catchments_output` | Vector | Drive-time catchment polygons per candidate
`overlap_analysis_output` | Vector/GeoJSON | Candidate-level overlap visualization with coverage gain and opportunity band
`candidate_rank_csv` | CSV | rank, site_id, x, y, demand_coverage_pct, coverage_gain_pct, avg_distance_to_demand, competitive_overlap_pct, accessibility_score, composite_rank_score, opportunity_band
`executive_summary_json` | JSON | total_candidates, market_metrics, top_candidates, recommendation, decision_gate, decision_rationale
`market_action_queue_csv` | CSV | Prioritized expansion actions by candidate/opportunity band

Map interpretation: `catchments_output` contains one candidate-level polygon per candidate (not separate ring-band polygons). Catchments are convex-hull trade areas of covered demand plus candidate location; if a hull cannot be formed, a small fallback square polygon may be written. `overlap_analysis_output` is a point layer, and square symbols there are usually marker style.

## Python Example

    env = WbEnvironment(license_tier="pro")

    result = env.run_tool("market_access_and_site_intelligence_workflow",
        network="city_network.gpkg",
        sites_existing="existing_retail.gpkg",
        sites_candidates="candidate_expansion_sites.gpkg",
        demand_surface="customer_demand_points.gpkg",
        competition_sites="competitor_locations.gpkg",
        ring_costs=[5, 10, 15],
        catchments_output="output/candidate_catchments.gpkg",
        overlap_analysis_output="output/competitive_overlap.gpkg",
        candidate_rank_csv="output/candidate_ranking.csv",
        executive_summary_json="output/market_summary.json",
        market_action_queue_csv="output/market_action_queue.csv",
    )

    print(result)

## License Notice

Use of this function requires a license for Whitebox Workflows Professional (WbW-Pro). Please visit www.whiteboxgeo.com to purchase a license.

## Project Links

WbW Homepage User Manual Support WbW