Review of Riordan Manufacturing's Telephone and Data Networks

Review of Riordan Manufacturing's Telephone and Data Networks

Riordan Manufacturing is a global company that manufactures plastic products including beverage containers, custom plastic parts, and plastic fan parts. Their products serve a variety of customers including automotive manufacturers, aircraft and appliance part manufacturers, the Department of Defense, bottlers, and beverage makers. Dr. Riordan, who started the company by leasing the rights to plastics manufacturing patents, realized the commercial opportunity of these processes and founded the company in 1991. They now employ 550 people, project earnings of $46 million for the current fiscal year, and are recognized as a Fortune 1000 enterprise with revenues in excess of $1 billion.

The explosive growth experienced by Riordan Manufacturing over recent years has placed a strain on the information systems infrastructure of the company. Acquiring additional facilities with disparate systems has led to operational inefficiencies, particularly in the inventory management and manufacturing arenas, resulting in the issuance of a formal service request to the technology team. This paper will provide an overview of the current telephone and data networks for Riordan and recommendations for improvements, which may be necessary.

Overview of Existing Telephone Systems

Riodan Manufacturing has a telephone and data network where the hub of the network is located in San Jose, California and connects to three locations in Michigan, Georgia, and China. The Riodan Manufacturing Company has a VoIP telephone system. "VoIP is only the first step in the telecommunications evolution taking place online. Next up is ‘unified communication,' a technology pursued by Microsoft, Cisco and others. Unified communications is the use of advanced technology to replace traditional telecommunications infrastructure such as PBX, fax and even the desktop telephone." Telecommunications Systems Move Online Including Unified Communications, Telepresence (2008).

Employees can use software that is installed on their computer, on a mobile device or from a remote computer to access the "…VoIP phone service, email, voice mail, fax, instant messaging (IM), collaborative calendars and schedules, contact information such as address books, audio conferencing and video conferencing." VoIP technology expands the use of telecommunications beyond the traditional telephone system. "Microsoft states that it believes that unified communications will soon transform business in the same way that email changed the business landscape in the 1990s." Telecommunications Systems Move Online Including Unified Communications, Tele-presence (2008).

"Unified communications will drive the next major advancement in individual, team and organizational productivity in today's 24x7, always-connected and increasingly mobile work environment," Raikes said. According to Raikes, Microsoft plans to change the way people communicate in a business by integrating telecommunications with Microsoft's products. Microsoft News (2006).

"The company will bring together its popular corporate e-mail offerings of Microsoft Exchange Server, which includes new unified messaging capabilities, Microsoft Office Outlook®, and Microsoft Speech Server, with updated versions of its real-time collaboration technologies and a set of new communications devices to form a cohesive unified communications solution. Built on a rich platform and supported by the extensive capabilities of its growing partner ecosystem, Microsoft's unified communications offerings will deliver seamless comprehensive and integrated communications capabilities for businesses." Microsoft News (2006).

A disadvantage of not implementing unified communications is that the Riordan Manufacturing Company would not take advantage of the features that are available to enhance business communication.

Current Network Topology

Riordan Manufacturing current topology consists of four separate star topology LAN's (Local Area Networks) consisting of a Mesh Network to interconnect all WAN (Wide Area Networks) links. Internal network speed varies from 10-100 Mbps and backbones interconnecting each site vary from Fractional T-1 to Full T-1 (1.544Mbps).

Pre-requisite to any systems improvements considered for Riordan Manufacturing's operations is an examination of their current computer hardware, database management structure, and resource management systems.

In considering the computer hardware that comprises Riordan Manufacturing's IT infrastructure, immediately apparent, nearly all major computer systems are in need of upgrade in order to provide the platform on which to implement the modern systems needed for operational