Riordan Manufacturing Service Request

Riordan Manufacturing Service Request

Introduction

Riordan Manufacturing is a leader of plastics research and development. Riordan was established in 1991 and currently has locations both in the continental United States and China. The combined locations of San Jose, CA; Albany, GA; Pontiac, MI and China employs 550 individuals between these four locations (Apollo Group, Inc, 2013). COO Hugh McCauley has requested that the current information system in the Human Resources department be updated and integrated into a single application for use by all locations. There are several key areas which need to be addressed such as the stakeholders, gathering of information, scope of the project, feasibility of the project, architecture of the system, process design, security, installation and operation.

Stakeholders

The definition of a stakeholder in a project is any person, group or organization which will or can be affected by a new business system (Dennis, Wixom & Roth, 2012, pg 33). With Riordan having several locations the list of stakeholders is extensive by this definition of what a stakeholder in a project is. For this reason this list must be trimmed to key stakeholders. Therefore, the following are stakeholders which would be the key to the initial gathering of information on the requirements: Director of Human Resources; Employee Relations Manager; Compensation and Benefits Manager; Payroll Manager; Recruiter; Training and Development; Safety Manager; VP Sales and Marketing; Chief Legal Counsel; Director of Plant Operations, MI; Director of Plant Operations, GA; Director of Plant Operations China; Manager IT Services; Manager IT Services, MI; Manager IT Services, GA; and Manager IT Services, China. It is necessary to include stakeholders from each of the locations as well as the Human Resource Department and IT Department. Depending upon the level of detail that is available through these sources it may become necessary to widen this key stakeholder group.

Information Gathering

Gathering information in an analysis stage is critical to the success of a project. There are several methods which can be utilized to obtain information, such as interview, system reports, documentation on current system, and procedure manuals. The project for Riordan is extensive and has numerous key stakeholders in various parts of the country and abroad. All of the information gathering methods mentioned would work for this project. However, with the stakeholders being in different locations and the number of them it would be more beneficial to utilize a joint application design (JAD) to start with. JAD is a perfect option for this type of project as there are many key stakeholders (Rottman, 2013). A JAD allows for all of the key stakeholders to be brought to one central location where by the system requirements can be obtained effectively. With the key stakeholders in one location any potential conflicts can be resolved early in the project process. For a JAD to be successful all participants must be committed; a large project such as this one for Riordan should be divided into separate units; the sessions should be held off site, document all the information gathered and decisions made, and assign responsibilities.

Even when the system requirements and details of the current system are obtained from the JAD it still may be necessary to gather further information from other stakeholders. In this instance interviews with those stakeholders would be the method chosen. For the interview method to be successful there are several key best practices to use. These best practices