System life cycle

Introduction

Riordan Manufacturing is a successful company that has been in business for 14 years and was founded by a chemistry professor, Dr. Michael Riordan. The corporation focuses on producing plastic products from its plants located in San Jose, California, Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan and Hang Zhou, China. Riordan Manufacturing supplies its products to major buyers such as automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers.

Unfortunately, Riordan Manufacturing has failed to implement significant upgrades within their information systems that would allow the company to be more effective and efficient. The purpose of this report is to make specific suggestions to Riordan's IT department to improve their industry and manufacturing processes.

Areas of Business to Improve

Several areas need to be improved at Riordan Manufacturing. Each office is currently running their own finance and accounting systems. Following the preparation of data for each individual finance system, the corporate office performs a consolidation of all the information.

Riordan Mansion, Flagstaff

Riordan Mansion, Flagstaff

Riordan Mansion, Flagstaff

To make this process of consolidating easier, the company should select a new system that will be used by all the offices as well as plan for the purchase of new equipment to run the application.

The sales and marketing teams have information databases that are in the planning stages. Additional hardware will be required to accommodate the new requests for software and/or development. In addition, the purchase of laptop computers should be considered for traveling salespeople and marketing staff to assist with the input of data in the new systems.

The Pontiac, Michigan office's wiring is outdated. New Cat-5 or Fiber wiring should be installed to lay the foundation for bringing the speed of their network to match the other offices at a rate of 100Base-T.

Several of the workstations at the Pontiac, MI and...