Detailed Report: Operations Management of Qantas Airline (T2 2019)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Qantas Airline's operations management, focusing on key aspects such as operational strategy in a global context and job design. It examines the airline's performance objectives, including quality, speed, dependability, customization, flexibility, and cost. The report delves into Qantas's new product and service design, supply chain management, covering procurement, inbound, and outbound logistics. Furthermore, it explores job design within Qantas, emphasizing the importance of job analysis, training, and change management. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement, particularly in addressing challenges related to change management and employee satisfaction, along with a detailed reference list.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Qantas Airline
Operations Management
8/1/2019

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Overview of Qantas Airlines..................................................................................................2
Operation Strategies of Qantas in Global Context.................................................................2
Performance Objective.......................................................................................................2
New product/service design and development...................................................................3
Supply chain management.................................................................................................4
Job Design in Qantas..............................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations......................................................................................................................7
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Operations management is the procedure that efficiently plans, arranges, directs, and controls
the resources that are developed for the good and serves of the company. With the support of
operations management, business is capable to handle different attributes of the operation like
equipment, technology, people, information, and others. Operations management is
considered to be the very essential component of the operations of manufacturing, which
raises the requirement for the businesses to ensure strong procedure of operations
management (Sanders, 2013). The intent of this report is to discuss the operation
management procedure and its key aspects of Qantas Airlines which is one of the leading
company of the Australian market. The report is comprised of two main aspects of the
operations management that are Operations Strategy in the Global context and Job Design.
Overview of Qantas Airlines
Qantas Airways is the Australian flag carrier and it is the biggest airline in terms of size of
the fleet, international destinations as well as flights. In the world, Qantas is placed at the
third leading position after KLM and Avianca. The company was established in the year 1920
and started its international flights in the year 1935. The original name of the company is,
“Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services”, and its nickname is “The Flying
Kangaroo”. Sydney Airport is the main hub of the airline. According to the reports of Qantas,
it covers 65% of the domestic market of Australia and serves 14.9% of the passengers that are
traveling to and from Australia (Qantas Airways Limited, 2019).

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Operation Strategies of Qantas in Global Context
Performance Objective
Quality – One of the key performance objectives of Qantas Airlines is to offer quality
services to its passengers by ensuring safe and secure travel as well as another customer
service in order to satisfy their needs. Besides this, the company desire to be always the right
choice of the customers while offering its services in comparison to other players in the
market (Bhasin, 2018).
Speed – Under the speed objective, Qantas Airlines ensure that it offers fastest traveling
services to its passenger by in building advanced technology. It provides convenience as well
as fast services to the passengers.
Dependability – Qantas Airline provides effective training to its staff members and pilots in
order to entire on-time landing and take-off of flights which increases the trust of the
customers. In addition to these delivering on-time services increases the chances of reuse of
the services (Reddy, 2015).
Customization – Customizations means the capability to offer more options to the customers.
Qantas Airlines is majorly involved in offering customization services due to operating at the
global level. For instance, JetStar is the cheaper airline service in order to meet the
requirement of middle-class customers and changing the perception of people that Qantas
offers high class and expensive services (Jetstar Airways, 2019).
Flexibility – Qantas Airline can manage change within the organization with the changing
trend in the market (Qantas Airways, 2019).
Cost – Qantas Airline is the third leading Airline service in the world, which highlights that it
offers reliable services and is preferred by customers. The high preference among passengers
reflects that the company is productive and able to meet its debts.

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New product/service design and development
The airline industry is with time becoming challenging as well as competitive for the
companies operating in the industry. With the increasing prices of oil it is becoming very
tough for the companies to operate successfully in the market as the result they are adopting
different cost-cutting strategies such as cutting labor cost. This is negatively impacting their
image and profit. Furthermore, the increasing competition among airline companies is
resulting in offering a variety of services to the customers, for instance, Qantas Airline
introduced its Jetstar Asia, Jetstar Pacific, and Jetstar Japan as the low-cost airlines to offer as
the substitute for expensive flights to the passengers. The company introduced new flights to
increase its customer base as well as a profit margin (Centre for Aviation, 2019).
Supply chain management
Procurement
The supply chain of Qantas Airlines starts with fuel procurement. The strategy of
procurement of Qantas Group is concentrated towards increasing the value for the
shareholders. The procurement of Qantas is achieved by a disciplined, organized and
continuing procedure to attain dependable and ethical supply of the services and products that
are purchased externally (Qantas Airways Limited, 2011). Qantas Group acquires diverse
extents of services and goods that are ranged from stationary to aircraft. From the analysis, it
has been identified that 60% of the company’s revenue is invested in suppliers while
procuring them.

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Source [(Qantas Airways Limited, 2018)]
Qantas Group has adopted the green procurement policy through biofuel feasibility has
decreased the negative impact on the environment.
Inbound and Outbound Logistics of Qantas
The inbound and outbound logistics in the supply chain is related to obtaining the raw
material from the suppliers and then processing and converting them in the output in order to
offer final services to the consumers. The Qantas’s inbound logistics is comprised of
Passenger Service System, Facilities planning, Route Selection, and Yield Management
System, Facilities Planning. On the other side, the outbound logistics of the company is
comprised of a flight connection, a system of hotel reservation, and Barrage system (Qantas,
2011).
Job Design in Qantas
Job design and job analysis is the foundation of the Human resource management of Qantas
Airlines. Job analysis can be considered as the center of every activity that lies under human
resource management and is required for operative functioning of the organization. In the job
analysis, human resource management is accountable for forming, recruiting, selecting,

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placing, and introducing the workforce. After completing the procedure of Job analysis, the
next step is Job Designing (Human Resource Director, 2019). The job designing aims to
outline as well as organize the roles, responsibilities, and task under a single unit to attain a
specific goal. Job designing in the Qantas Airline Company is important in allowing effective
feedback. Further, training is considered as the imperious portion of the job designing for
ensuring that the workforce is aware of their work demands. Training is comprised of
leadership training to employee orientation. Training and development segment of the
company performs a major part in ensuring its success. Today, many of the businesses
consider training as the imperative part of the human resource. According to the analysis, it
could be said that many of the organizations like Qantas Airlines are investing huge amount
on training activities with the trust that it will accordingly offer them a competitive advantage
in the local as well as global market. As per the theory of human resource, workers require
high support from the function of the human resource (Wei, 2009). In this care, Qantas
Airlines provide training to the workforce to motivating them and ensuring competitive
advantage against key competitors in the global market. It is considered that training is vital
in confirming imperative piloting skills. According to the reports, in the year 2009, Qantas
Airlines launched around $10 million staff training centers in order to build on economies of
scale (Qantas Airways, 2017). With the support of job designing activity, the human
resource department supports the workforce in making major adjustments.
The two main functions of human resource management are to confirm successful change
management, job analysis, and job design. However, Qantas Airline has experienced several
challenges in these segments. Under the change management, the company focused on
cutting cost by adopting ways like cutting labor cost for increasing productivity, confirming a
moderate salary of the workers and establishing flexible structures. But, the company has
failed in executing non-biased change management. Due to this, recently workforce of the

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company complained regarding getting paid meager salaries and even gone for strikes for the
same. If the company desired to execute successful change management, it would have
ensured an effective employee's remuneration (O’Sullivan, 2011). It is awkward to highlight
that a trustworthy and famous organization like Qantas has failed in executing the successful
change management strategy.
Conclusion
The above report has discussed the two main aspects of the operations management strategy
of Qantas Airlines which is one of the leading airways organization across the world. The
company is involved in offering international services at international destinations with its
variety of airways. From the analysis, it has been identified that company gives major
importance to its procurement strategy of fuel. On the other side, from the job design analysis
of the company, it has been identified that Qantas is involved in the change management
practices due to which it is involved in cost-cutting. The change management strategies of the
company have negatively impacted its image in the market as well as among employees.
Recommendations
The above report has highlighted that under change management strategy of the company,
Qantas is dealing with a number of challenges such as strikes by employees and increasing
turnover. In order to overcome these challenges, Qantas Airline needs to ensure that it offers
sufficient pay and facilities to its employees. The company must make changes in its change
management strategy by shifting its focus from making a profit to employee-oriented
approach. Company is recommended to change its communication as well as training
programs in order to ensure employee satisfaction.

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OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 9
Reference
Bhasin, H. (2018) Marketing Strategy of Qantas Airlines [online]. Available from
https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-strategy-of-qantas-airlines/ [accessed 2 August
2019]
Centre for Aviation (2019) Qantas Group [online]. Available from
https://centreforaviation.com/data/profiles/airline-groups/qantas-group [accessed 2 August
2019]
Human Resource Director (2019) The story behind the award-winning Qantas HR team
[online]. Available from https://www.hcamag.com/au/news/general/the-story-behind-the-
award-winning-qantas-hr-team/144887 [accessed 2 August 2019]
Jetstar Airways (2019) Jetstar Pacific [online]. Available from
https://www.jetstar.com/au/en/about-us/jetstar-group/jetstar-pacific [accessed 2 August 2019]
O’Sullivan, M. (2011) Qantas profit hit by strikes, fuel costs [online]. Available from
https://www.smh.com.au/business/qantas-profit-hit-by-strikes-fuel-costs-20111128-
1o21v.html [accessed 2 August 2019]
Qantas (2011) Qantas Airways Limited 2011 Strategy Day [online]. Available from
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file/presentations/qantas-strategy-day-presentation-2011.pdf [accessed 2 August 2019]
Qantas Airways (2017) Qantas Centre of Service Excellence [online]. Available from
https://www.qantas.com/travel/airlines/excellence/global/en [accessed 2 August 2019]

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Qantas Airways (2019) About Qantas Airways [online]. Available from
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the Strategies and Tactics for Planning, Organizing, and Managing How Products and
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