Geocoding in Logistics and Supply Chain

Geocoding is a technique used to assign geographical interpretable data to a physical location. We can geocode a physical address, a particular monument, a computer via its fixed IP address, a picture…

The most common geocoding process will return the physical location’s geographical coordinates: latitude and longitude. Both are expressed in degree, minutes and seconds with the indication of the hemisphere or the position regarding Greenwich meridian.

Ex : Latitude 43° 42' 12'' N = 43degrees, 42 minutes and 12 seconds in the northern hemisphere and Longitude 7° 15' 58'' E = 7degrees, 15 minutes and 58 seconds on the eastern side of the Greenwich meridian.

• => Find latitude and longitude from an address using this free geocoding tool .

In logistics and Supply Chain, Geocoding is used to locate the logistics network entities such as warehouses or cross-docks.

Combined with geocoding, the barycentre technique -although not perfect- is commonly used to get a first idea of the possible warehouse location.

• => See Description of Barycenter technique to locate a warehouse