Riordan Manufacturing Business Systems
Riordan Manufacturing is global plastics manufacturer currently having 550 employees. Riordan Manufacturing is owned by Riordan Industries which is a Fortune 1000 company and has revenue exceeding $1 billion. Riordan Manufacturing has plants in Georgia, Michigan, and China. The company’s research and development teams are located at the corporate headquarters in San Jose, California. Riordan has many customers but their major ones are automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers. The plant in Georgia produces plastic beverage containers. Michigan’s plant produces custom plastic parts and China produces plastic fan parts. Riordans future goal is to be focused in reaching and maintaining profitability in assuring the financial and human capital sustains growth.
Riordan Manufacturing have three separate entities with their own Finance and Accounting Systems. All input from these locations are kept at the corporate office in San Jose. Each system has all the same components other than EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and EDSS (Executive Decision Support System) which is only available at the San Jose location. The components each system has is:
General Ledger
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Order Entry
Procurement
Sales and Purchasing History
Payroll
Financial Reporting
Bar Code Reading
As each location was acquired the F&A system’s compatibility was not addressed. This has made it difficult to maintain all the F&A’s data.
San Jose uses a fully integrated Windows based ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) manufacturing, distribution and financial management software. This software is designed for plastic processors and assembly manufacturers. Although the main office in San Jose receives all the data they have the issue of having to convert this data into the correct accounts.
Operating systems were kept the same at the time of acquisition and the issues in the separate entities are unknown to customers and suppliers. Michigan is using a software application, attendant source, and process application from a vendor that is no longer in business. The system being used is a pair of DEC Alpha’s using the VMS (Virtual Memory System), VAX 4000 work stations and programmed in C. Georgia is using a vendor software application, source code, and manufacturing process application. This system uses a pair of AS400’s, operating the UNIX system, PC’s as workstations and programmed using RPG400.
We are going to suggest that all systems be converted to the same system as San Jose. This will involve switching the Georgia and Michigan plants to the ERP system. This in turn allowing all systems to be processing all data in the same manner which will decrease the cost of labor and time spent converting data. This integration will also make data available immediately instead of having to wait several weeks to get the final results for the income statement and balance sheet, reduce labor in auditing, and staying in compliance with any new government reporting requirements.
Implementing web forms, PDF forms and an API (Application Programming Interface) will assist in extinguishing manual data entries. The use of these forms will assist in maintain and keeping only the files created for the company. Employees will not be able to create folders or make copies of any data which will assure Riordan in the security of their system. The API will be available for customer and supplier information use.