ABSTRACT

Feasibility Study is a tool to be used by industrial managers to make decisions about industrial expansions and implantations, besides to estimate parameters possibiliting the beginning of Engineering (basic and detailed projects). In short, helps to transform the management intention or idea on real parameters to the changes process.

This thesis is reviewing the Feasibility Study because, today, the management intention is a complex area called Business Strategy. Besides, international new order, showing global economy and demanding new model of competitiveness, is imposing to enterprises strategical readaptations and consequently news projects which should be created and analysed under new techniques and views.

A new Feasibility Study approach, introducing on Business Strategy area, now transforming itself in a instrument to link Strategies and Engineering, but fundamentally as efficient decision instrument to changes, is the principal objective of this thesis.

About the content, firstly the thesis analyses the bibliographic gap to the subject. In second place, it examines how this subject is boarding by the enterprises, based in two researches: 1- showing the development of the Feasibility Study application in enterprises of Santa Catarina; 2- analysing how famous enterprises of Santa Catarina and Minho Region, in Portugal, define Strategies and prepare Feasibility Studies. These researches supply subsidies to the definition of the prescriptive model.

In the prescriptive model, the first part show a model to define Strategic-Mix - a set of Global Strategies-, and the second part defines a new Feasibility Study model, where the traditional steps: market, production, localisation, scale and financial sources, are reviewed to transformate Strategies in parameters to the Engineering. A practical case show how to use and the advantages of the model.

It is important to say that the experience of Portugal enterprises, now changing its strategies in the European Economic Community, anticipating a new ambient to be lived by brazilian enterprises, was fundamental to develop this thesis.