Summary: Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing is an international plastics manufacturer that currently employs 550 people with projected annual earnings totaling approximately $46 million. The company is completely owned by Riordan Industries which is a Fortune 1000 enterprise with revenues of up to $1 billion. The company’s merchandises consists of plastic beverage containers that are produced at its plant in Albany, Georgia; custom plastic parts are manufactured at its plant in Pontiac, Michigan; and plastic fan parts are created at its facilities in Hangzhou, China ("Riordan Manufacturing", 2013).

It has been decided that Riordan Manufacturing will implement an official customer management system. This system will be used by everyone in the organization. The main goal of the team is to help with the planning and implementation of the new system in order for a smooth transition.

Riordan Manufacturing has decided to make a change to company’s customer management system. The company does not currently have any formal system for managing its customer information and has traditionally left this up to individual employees. This new system will require all employees to use one customer management system. Your team is now working to help Riordan implement this planned change. Your team must do the following in your role as consultants:

Riordan manufacturing is a very large company with facilities in many locations around the World. With any company with this size Riordan must have a system in place that is able to keep track of significant amounts of information. Such as Employee names, time sheets and a variety of other important information. This system should be able to have a central location so that stores all of this information and can be accessed not only by the corporate office but at each location as well. There are many functions that a new and improved system should provide. Such as inventory control, tracking of shipments into and out of the warehouses, and the receiving of such items to our costumers. These requirements are essential to the growth of Riordan Manufacturing.

This way the IT department can understand what the higher level and lower level employees need for system stability and a better graphical interface. Another plan of action would include the method of Systems Development Life Cycle or SDLC. The phases of this method are planning, analysis, system design, implementation and operation. First we must plan on what exactly we are trying to accomplish. We know we need to upgrade the Riordan Manufacturing system. Next we must analyze the system and look for problematic errors. A project proposal can be essential to launching a system analysis (Farah, 2013). These are things to keep in mind: understand the business situation or problem, understand the significance to the problem in the organization, think of alternate solutions, the use of computer information systems for solutions, find people interested in the solving the problem (Farah, 2013). This plan is used to decrease redundancies, errors, and increase security. Finding all the weak spots in the company will help in the improvement of integrating an updated efficiently functioning system. Feasibility is important to account for when upgrading the system. Integrating a CRM will help to work with customers and understand their needs and wants to benefit the company and the relationship with their customers. Designing the system will involve knowing what kind of software is needed to store and

In order to create a successful business plan, we first conducted a needs analysis and put together a list of recommendations that could be used to help the company. Riordan Manufacturing would like to reduce costs and materials across all plants. The introduction phase involves the evaluation of the current

Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics manufacturer employing 550 people with projected annual earnings of $46 million. There is a plant in Albany, GA that produces plastic beverage containers, a plant in Pontiac, MI that produces custom plastic parts, and a plastic fan parts facility in Hangzhou, China. The corporate office is in San Jose, CA along with the corporations Research and Development Department. Riordan Manufacturing is a subsidiary of the parent company Riordan Industries, Inc. a Fortune 1000 enterprise with revenues in excess of $1 billion (Apollo Group, 2013).

Riordan Manufacturing COO Hugh McCauley is requesting the implementation of a modern, state-of-the-art information system to integrate all existing HR tools into a single application. To achieve the desired goal, a very detailed investigation needs to be performed, studying the actual processes that Riordan Manufacturing currently uses. Also, a series of stakeholders will provide the adequate feedback trough a series of face-to-face interviews and meticulous observation of their respective working environments. These tools will help create a system that will maximize time

Riordan Manufacturing has decided to make a change to company’s customer management system. The company does not currently have any formal system for managing their customer information and has traditionally left this up to individual employees. This new system will require all employees to use one customer management system. Your team is now working to help Riordan implement this planned change. Your team must do the following in your role as consultants:

Riordan Manufacturing currently has four plants of operations. These plants are in San Jose, California, Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan and Hungzhou, China. Currently the Operations department runs on independent Microsoft SQL servers running Microsoft Project, and Microsoft Office 2003. The Research and Development department recently received an upgrade to there outdated Computer Aided Drafting Software from aSa Solutions because the system on hand was inadequate to handle the needs of the Pyramid Bottle project.

The increased number of IT investment is applied in organization. It is clear that information technology has become the competitive fact in world business. Collaboration is the new trend in business world. No one can deny the importance of information technology application. Besides the profits outcome, the impacts of information technology deployment also create commitment, trust and value. Advanced information system can improve each steps of business process. It enables people to share information, performance task simultaneously and making decision efficiently. IT companies designed different products to satisfy each step of business operation in terms of manufacturing and human resources. Seminole should apply this new IT infrastructure to business operation. Firstly, company can use the transaction processing systems (IPS) to keep track of all business activities and transaction of the organization such as payroll and employee record keeping. IPS also shows all information from internal and external operation. Secondly, Business intelligence systems are designed for decision-making support. Management information system (MIS) is a system that helps managers to keep track of company performance status, which purposed for decision-making and evaluation. Decision-support system (DSS) is purposed for future business decision-making. Thirdly, Enterprise application systems are designed for integrating business process from different functions, such as supply chain

Every organization has their own manufacturing strategy, depending on the type of organization will depend on the strategy to have the best end result. Understanding the strategies and how they are used can help the manufacturing process. Riordan manufacturing is a Fortune 1000 organization which produces multiple products, throughout this paper Team C will explain Riordan’s manufacturing strategy and the details that go into a manufacturing strategy.

IS updates at Riordan Manufacturing are necessary to meet future goals. We would like to be your partner, helping you reach the $50 million dollar revenue target. (Riordan Manufacturing Intranet, 2005) Your current information systems state will not enable Riordan to achieve this mark, especially in the finance, accounting and inventory areas. We will demonstrate how systems upgrades at your Atlanta, Georgia and Pontiac, Michigan plants will improve information integrity and availability through your entire organization. This investment in the future will guarantee your financial success of the future.

Riordan Manufacturing should begin implementing a matrix structure. Despite the more complex nature of the matrix structure, it promotes a comprehensive understanding throughout the company; allowing more communication between members in different departments and divisions. This enables each member in the organization to know and understand his or her role. This structure also allows the company to be more flexible and promotes growth

Riordan Manufacturing's China plant is focused on the manufacturer of electric fans and related products. The Hangzhou (China) facility was developed as a joint venture between Riordan and a Chinese partner who had experience operating in the region. The Chinese partner was able to help Riordan to develop this facility by finding labor, communicating with the local vendors, governments, and regulatory agencies as well as being contributing capital to the project. The Riordan team has provided management and operational guidance to the Chinese partners in the joint-venture.