“Operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long term capabilities of any type of operation and their contribution to overall strategy, through the reconciliation of market requirements with operations resources”

p OPERATIONS STRATEGY

2007

INTRODUCTION

Operation strategy of Cathay Pacific Airlines in long term capacity with reconciliation is a specialized functional discipline that has carved out its own place in Management practice . It is a discipline received wide scale attention throughout the industrialized world and so did the affairs of managing large projects . When the countries joined the race for industrialization , they essentially had to manage large investments Projects of increasingly complex sizes were and are being executed Operation strategy , therefore , assumes an added significance for any company p

Management experts have examined the life cycle of a project with respect to the intensity of activity that is associated with a particular project . Accordingly , a project is divided into four distinct phases as under (i ) Feasibility (ii ) Design (iii ) Production , and (iv ) Termination (I ) Feasibility

This phase of a project is an essential component of the project which begins with the identification of some unfulfilled need in the economy or the market . This need is at the root of a concept /idea where an entrepreneur or an enterprise gets an idea to design and establish a project that will fulfill this need . In case a project idea is generally found to he feasible from all considerations , it is then given a `go - ahead ' signal which indicates a commitment on the part of the authority giving the `go-ahead ' signal to provide necessary resources for carrying the project through . to its logical completion

Phase-I of the project can be summarized as under

a ) Identification of the need

b ) Establishment of the primary feasibility of project idea

c ) Identification of alternatives

d ) Evaluation of the alternatives

e ) Investment decision (ii ) Design

Once the investment decision is taken , the design or the planning stage of the project starts . In the design phase the original project idea is amplified as much as possible so that a complete `blue-print ' of the project is available for the next stage . This means the technical parameters are frozen , the basic designing of the project is completed specifications for major plant and equipment are finalized , costs of the project are estimated in greater details , a time schedule for the project is planned and all necessary steps are taken to tie-up the required funds and other resources for successful execution of the project (iii ) Production

After the design phase is over , a project moves into the production phase where the emphasis is on giving a physical shape to the ideas that were elaborated in the project . Usually , this demands actions to procure the materials , machineries and equipment required for the project and construction of facilities like buildings , equipment foundations , infrastructure etc . at the project site , to receive these equipment . After the plant and equipments are manufactured and delivered and civil and structural work is completed to receive these equipments they are erected and tested . There is a great need for almost continuous monitoring and control of all activities , deciding and taking prompt corrective actions and attending to numerous conflicts that are inevitable when...