Cis 319/ Riordan Manufacturing
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Riordan Manufacturing
IT Proposal & Assessment Summary
According to Riordan’s Capital Budget Executive Summary for
Fiscal year ending 2005, the consensus of Riordan’s executive management is that the F&A, Manufacturing (ERP), and the Sales Performance and Management (CRM) applications and processes are in disarray, and a serious risk to the business. The infrastructure needs to be completely overhauled in all categories with specific emphasis in application software, databases, and hardware.
The current state of the IT infrastructure includes challenges in coordinating sales, services, resource planning, and financial accounting with the currently deployed aging, incompatible, IT systems to run the core business. The legacy applications and the associated hardware were not designed initially to work together seamlessly, and as a result, are becoming very expensive to maintain and less reliable. There are several internal business processes that still include heavy manual intervention and are not automated. There are also handwritten data records inputted in multiple areas through manual data entry. This practice creates an unacceptable level of risk to the business including noncompliance to regulatory mandates.
It is proposed by our team that an update in processes and technology will result in significant cost savings. We will attempt to leverage the current infrastructure in certain areas wherever possible to limit both capital and operating expenditures. This assessment also does not take into consideration any potential risks associated with costs in training employees in new applications, professional services with regards to implementation, knowledge transfer, and ongoing �care and feeding’ of new applications. We will however, be able to better indentify underutilized assets during the first phases of implementation planning with the customer. Here are our findings and recommendations to date.
Databases
Riordan has major issues and limitations when it comes to databases. Current infrastructure exposes numerous risks to the enterprise and significant costs associated with accuracy, access, warehousing, management, and data mining. There are islands of information scattered in multiple locations across the enterprise. The number of people accessing the data will continue to grow. If this is not addressed early, eventually backup, DR, and overall availability will too become problematic. With the manual entry and non-automation of processes, it is also adding to redundant information and corruption.
The team would like to propose Microsoft SQL Server 2003 Enterprise Edition as the centralized, consolidated, relational database. MS SQL is an industry standard database with most small to medium manufacturing businesses like Riordan. With MS SQL, Riordan can be more nimble, taking advantage of quick business decisions by:
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Consolidated single source of data – more accurate, easier to manage, less prone to privacy and security violations. Reduces manual processes.
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Scalable – as data and demand grows the Database can also meet those challenges.
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Fast performance – process data and serve customers faster.
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Less Expensive — reduce both capital and operating expenses
HW Requirements:
Rack Mount 1u HP Proliant DL320 (Primary)
Intel Pentium 4 — Quad Core/4 Processors
500GB SATA, x 2 to account for growth in DB
4GB RAM min.
Cold Standby server in MI for DR, same config. as above
Custom script to be run in the event of primary failure, wake on LAN for startup of standby and traffic redirection, minimal downtime.
3.) Professional Services for implementation and configuration.
Finance & Accounting
Riordan’s processes and technology in the area of financial accountability is also in need of change and consolidation. Currently, each operating entity has a separate F&A system and solution. Data is then consolidated, manually, and re-inputted into a centralized system at corporate HQ in San Jose. As Riordan acquired the operating companies, the F&A system compatibility and process was not fully addressed and optimized. The decentralized nature of the F&A infrastructure and processes at Riordan exposes the company to excessive risk of accounting inconsistencies, security and audit failures, and also makes reporting on these activities tedious and labor intensive. Riordan needs to restructure the current F&A operations focusing on the administrative burden. F&A system outputs at the consolidated level in San Jose are strained to meet current reporting requirements, and with new compliance mandates, the executive management team has deemed this as unacceptable, and change in this area is paramount.
The team has decided to propose Microsoft Dynamics for Small Business. This application suite was designed for companies like Riordan who doesn’t have a good handle on centralized management of financials, sales, purchasing, inventory, payroll, and reporting all in one application. This solution also integrates with other MS applications like Excel and Word that Riordan is familiar with, but more importantly, MS SQL Server 2003 as this is the centralized DB proposed. Since the applications are integrated, Riordan will also reduce costs in training of its users to the new application. With Microsoft Dynamics, Riordan can drive out costs through standardization of a fully integrated solution that includes an integration wizard that will help in the importing of master records and transactions that are in other applications.
System Requirements:
Client:
Windows