Continuous operations are ongoing business activities that require planning and regular maintenance. Examples include telephone routing systems and public services like water and electricity. Challenges include repairing live systems and developing temporary systems during maintenance. 24-hour personnel are essential for emergencies and certain operations, such as nuclear power plants.
Continuing operations are business activities of a sustained nature, continuing without coming to a stopping point. This includes business operations used to keep a business open, as well as short-term continuing operations, activities designed to support the completion of an established project. There are a number of concerns associated with such operations that need to be addressed during their planning, as well as on a regular basis to ensure they run smoothly and efficiently.
A classic example of continuous operations can be seen in the routing systems used by telephone companies. Phone company customers can pick up a phone at any time and dial a number and will be connected via electronic routers, human operators, or both, depending on the region and situation. These operations are not designed to stop; When people pick up phones, they expect to hear a dial tone and be able to make a call. The delivery of other public services such as water, sewage and electricity is also a form of continuous operations.
Because these operations never close, they pose some unique challenges. With other types of business activities, when a problem develops, operations may stop to fix it, or maintenance and repairs may take place after hours. In continuous operations, measures such as changing loads and repairing live systems are necessary. In cases where systems are shut down in emergencies, such as power companies cutting off power to their customers after a power line goes down, services must be restored as quickly as possible.
Infrastructure maintenance can be challenging and may require the development of systems to temporarily load loads while work is being done on the primary system. Likewise, replacing worn-out systems can be difficult. When replacing a bridge, for example, construction crews can’t just remove the old bridge to make room for a new one. Instead, they should build the new bridge next to the existing one to allow people to continue using the original bridge while they develop the replacement.
The availability of personnel 24 hours a day, every day of the year, is essential for continuous operations. Emergency personnel may be called at any time to address developing problems with the system and other concerns, and 24-hour personnel may be required for certain types of operations. At nuclear power plants, for example, staff members monitor systems at all times so that they can take quick action if problems develop at the plant, both to ensure a constant supply of electricity and to limit the risk of serious accidents.
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