Analyze Hr System of Riordan Manufacturing

Analyze HR Systems of Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing is a plastics manufacturing company employing 550 people. The plants are located in Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan, and Hangzhou, China. Its corporate headquarters is in San Jose, California. The company's HRIS ( Human Resources Information Systems) was installed in 1992 as part of the financial systems package. Most of the information maintained within the system is vital employee information (name, address, marital status and birth date), pay rate, personal tax exemptions, hire, and seniority date, and vacation status. When this information needs updating, submissions are made to the employees department manager and are input into the system by the payroll clerk . At the moment, there is no central filing system for employee records because the records are kept by department managers. Excel spreadsheet is utilized for maintaining training records of employees, status updates of new applicants, job analysis results, salary surveys and individual compensation decisions. Workers' compensation is managed by an outside party (Apollo, 2006). The service request tells us to analyze the current system and integrate all the Human Resources functions into a single application.

The scope of this project is the implementation of new software to aid data management. The existing computer systems and workstations should not be altered in any way because there is no reason to waste resources on anything that can still perform their functions. It is also recommended that the database system should have a solid disaster recovery and backup plan. This project will most likely be a success. A good advantage for Riordan is utilizing the same personnel and equipment. The only adjustment that the company will have to make is the introduction of the new database management system. All of the software needed for the database management can be easily acquired at a moderate price. The most important thing is that they do not change the way one approach a problem but rather helps to solve it.

To analyze the current HRIS, it is important to determine how the current system works. Once they obtain a better understanding of how the current system works we can move forward to, in this case, integrate all the HR functions into a single application. Understanding the current HR system means gathering information about the current system. It is important that the appropriate information is gathered to ensure that the proper methods of design are suggested. There are different traditional methods of gathering information. One of the best ways to get information is to talk to those directly or indirectly involved in the different parts of the organization affected by the possible system changes. Another way is to gather copies of documentation relevant to current systems and business processes (Valachic, 2009). Today there are two modern ways of gathering information: Joint Application Design (JAD) and prototyping. The primary purpose of using JAD in the analysis phase is to collect systems requirements simultaneously from the key people involved with the system. Having all the key people in one place at one time allows analysts to see the areas of agreement and areas of conflict (Valachic, 2009). Prototyping is a repetitive process in which analysts and users build a rudimentary version of an information system based on user feedback. Prototyping converts basic requirements into a working but limited version of the proposed information system (Valachich, 2009). Given all these methods use to gather information it is best to use JAD because it brings together the stakeholders, managers, and system analysts in order to work more efficiently in a given amount of time.

Most JAD sessions follow a very formal agenda and most have defined ground rules