Business Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Business Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Thank you for the opportunity to analyze your business needs. Through many hours of research by our experienced staff, we have made the following conclusions about Riordan Manufacturing’s business needs, as they relate to information technology.

The information technology infrastructure, applications, and data collection methods are inconsistent, and in some cases antiquated throughout the network creating compatibility issues with most of your business processes.

Inventory Tracking is conducted almost entirely by cross checking paper documents and manual data entry beginning with raw materials receiving, to final product shipping. This process is cumbersome and time-consuming, resulting in valuable time lost, excess personnel requirements, and delayed delivery to the customer.

Finance and accounting is not consolidated among the company’s four locations, causing loss of time, financial resources, and difficulty with auditing procedures. Data entry is duplicated among accounting offices, accounting codes are inconsistent, and time-consuming data conversion techniques are necessary to reach desired outcome. “Compliance with new government required reporting requirements at the consolidated level is difficult at best” (Riordan Manufacturing, 2005).

Marketing communication and research is accomplished using data from disparate databases, paper files and microfiche. The marketing organization would like to build on past knowledge, but marketing plans and research studies are stored on hard copy making the process extremely difficult, and doing so would expend valuable resources.

Human Resources Department is responsible for maintaining all records associated with personnel, training and development, recruiting, customer relations, and Worker’s Compensation. There is no centralized database for immediate access to personnel records, demographic reporting, or policies and procedures. Reports are completed and filed manually. The expense and time required to effectively route reports and collect information is causing delays in reporting procedures. Redundant processes and ineffective data retention are causing delays in obtaining information for employees and inconsistencies among data sources. Pay and bonus information is not immediately available for budgeting and accounting.

The Sales department does not have immediate access to information regarding recruiting efforts, customer relations, or sales incentive programs. Customer service records are not available to the appropriate departments in order to resolve customer service related issues. Customers do not have a convenient, efficient method to process and gain resolution to customer service issues. Customer records are maintained by each sales person without using any consistent methods.

Supply chain management is experiencing delays due to ineffective reporting procedures. “While this company attempts to maintain adequate quantities of electric motors in stock to meet all its order requirements, its on-time deliveries over the past year have averaged only 93%” (Riordan Manufacturing,