Since its inception in 1991, Riordan Manufacturing has been steadily increasing in size and production capability by leading the industry with its current business model and acquisition of key manufacturing plants. Due to the company's growth, Riordan is faced with multiple accounting, manufacturing, sales, purchasing, and inventory information systems. It has become necessary for Riordan to consolidate its communication infrastructure to accommodate this expansion and to alleviate the additional workload that has accrued from patching the information of each plant together. Integration of the information systems through network restructure and support applications will facilitate ...view middle of the document...
The first major problem is that each location of the company operates its own accounting management software to complete accounting operations, which means there is no collaboration between the locations. After each area has completed their portion of the accounting records, they send the completed information to the corporate office to be consolidation into one report.In addition, the methods used to send reports to corporate include data files and hard copies of reports that must be rescanned into the corporate system. Other issues with the system include outdated hardware used to store accounting information and locations using software from a vendor that is no longer in service.Improvements to this business system can be made by implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that is designed for manufacturing companies like Riordan. The ERP will allow the company to operate in a uniform fashion because each location will be using the same accounting management software. The corporate office can also view and receive accounting information from each site electronically; this is a more efficient way for the locations to submit reports to the corporate office, which can produce the final reports faster and decrease labor needed to combine the information. Also, using an ERP solution will make management and maintenance of software easier since issues, such as software updates, can be resolved at one location.Human Resources and LegalRiordan's human resource system was installed in 1992 as part of the financial systems package. Through expansion of the company, much of the HR information has become decentralized using separate applications creating redundancy, data isolation, and the potential for data inconsistencies. Employee information is maintained in different departments and much of the information is submitted in paper form to be entered by the payroll clerk. These inefficiencies have put limits on the productive potential of the computers and the users of these methods. Now due to the growth of Riordan Manufacturing, it has become imperative to integrate these separate processes into a comprehensive synchronized system.Integrating the various functions of Riordan's HRIS into the proposed ERP will facilitate the processes involved, not only in HR but also in other departments of the organization that need access to this data. By integrating the HR transaction processing systems with management and executive information systems, a streamlined approach in data entry and retrieval will be attained. Detailed engineering of the system's structure will emphasize application/data independence which will maintain data integrity while providing convenient and efficient access to the needed information.Legal ProcessesUpon review of the current legal process used by Riordan, it is apparent that the close relationship with the law firm of Litteral & Finkel has been a successful affiliation. With all legal matters being overseen...
