Geospatial Optimization of Field Engineer Deployment for Sustainable Telecommunication Tower Maintenance: A Case Study in West Java, Indonesia

The rapid expansion of telecommunication infrastructure in developing countries has increased the demand for sustainable strategies to deploy field engineers in tower maintenance operations. Traditional approaches often neglect spatial factors, resulting in inefficient workforce allocation, excessive travel, and higher carbon emissions. This study develops an applied geospatial deployment framework that integrates spatial analysis with sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) principles to support operational decision-making in resource-constrained telecommunication maintenance environments. Using publicly available tools, tower and homebase coordinates were mapped and analyzed through Haversine-based geodesic distance calculations, with a comparative assessment against Euclidean approximation, while incorporating operational constraints such as service time per tower, available personnel, and work-hour limitations. The results indicate that the existing two-homebase deployment strategy leads to unbalanced workloads and unnecessary travel distances. By introducing a cluster-based restructuring using k-means to identify four sub-homebases, the proposed approach reduces total round-trip travel distance from 9120 km to 5913 km per maintenance cycle, representing a 35.2% reduction. This distance reduction corresponds to an estimated saving of approximately 593 kg of CO2 emissions per maintenance cycle, representing an operational-scale reduction in travel-related emissions based on distance-derived fuel consumption modeling and assuming typical fuel efficiency for service vehicles. In addition, the optimized spatial configuration enables a more equitable distribution of engineers and reduces travel-related fatigue. These findings demonstrate the value of integrating geospatial optimization with sustainable supply chain management by aligning operational efficiency with quantifiable environmental and social sustainability outcomes. The proposed framework offers a replicable, low-cost, and data-driven solution for telecommunication infrastructure providers seeking to enhance the sustainability of field service operations in resource-constrained environments.