Development of an Enterprise Resource Planning System Essay

Riordan Manufacturing Inc. is a global plastics manufacturer that was founded in 1991 and employs 550 people. They have since expanded to three locations in the U. S. and one in China. Due to these expansions the company is now experiencing communication and processing issues. Each system needs to be connected to the others in order to improve the tracking and productivity as well as communication between systems. We have been asked to develop a plan to implement a system to connect all of the people and locations into one enterprise system that will give the company access to information from any location at any time. This document covers our plan to achieve this goal for Riordan Manufacturing Inc. Statement of Scope and Goals Riordan Manufacturing has requested that an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) be developed and used in the San Jose, California; Albany, Georgia; Pontiac, Michigan; and Hangzhou, China offices. The goal of this ERP project is to stream line the manufacturing, distribution, and inventory management systems across all plants and to use only one system. The newly proposed system will give Riordan Manufacturing a wealth of opportunity to grow its business and sustain the customers that it has already. The new system will assist the company in obtaining the goals that it has set forth with in its missions statement by providing solutions for its customers. Each of the four Riordan Manufacturing offices is utilizing different software programs to manage their manufacturing, distribution, and inventory. This type of environments provides very little functionality. The efficiency of this is also overwhelming because each plant in essence is not communicating with each other over one system. All of this makes it difficult to track accurately inventory, generate meaningful reports, respond to the information requests from stakeholders, and to make important decisions. Riordan Manufacturing needs an integrated solution that will provide real-time access to data for reporting, inventory, and distribution. The scope of the project is as follows: * A document that identifies specific modeling of the software that the company wishes to be implemented across the board as well as its dates for execution and go live plan. Detailed project plan to monitor and track the progress of the implementation * A communication plan so that status, upcoming events, milestones, and other general information can be shared with the project team as well as the stakeholders. * Risk assessment in order to identify any issues that may arise through out the project and have a contingency plan established before these issues arise. * An easy to use end user environment will be implemented. * All modules of the ERP system will be tested prior to implementation * End users will be trained in the use of the system and all modules before implementation. Technical and end user documentation will be created and finalized before implementation. * Process and procedural documentation will be created and finalized before implementation * All maintenance and support responsibilities will be assigned to those who will manage after implementation We will also hold a post implementation meetings and have evaluate the project implementation prior to the close of the project (Apollo Group, 2012). Support Measures for Success We believe it is important to track success in steps. We will be using Microsoft Project as a project management tool. This will give us the ability to track costs, labor, time and resources to ensure that the project is going as planned and also to know if there are any issues in any of these areas. Our goal is to bring the project in on time and within budget while still meeting all of the requirements for a successful implementation. Success is an ongoing goal and the focus of measure needs to be taken even after the project has been completed to unsure that choices made during the implementation still producing profit. Changes made need to be made during the support phase if additional functionality is needed. Adding more locations or applications to the system may also require altering the measurement standards of success. Summary of Project Feasibility To determine the feasibility of this project a number of factors must be considered, the first being the economic feasibility. Economic feasibility takes into consideration the overall cost of implementation and maintenance of the ERP system. It asks the questions of rather there be any cost savings through implementation of an ERP? Can be ERP increase the revenue for Riordan? And over time, will investment into the ERP decrease (O’Brien & Marakas, 2009)? In general, it must justify that the overall cost of the ERP give an adequate return of investment (ROI) back to Riordan (Motiwalla & Thompson, 2009). Next operational feasibility is looking at rather Riordan’s infrastructure can currently handle the demands of an ERP system. Then if not, changes are going to have to be made to those systems some that the implemented ERP can operate successfully. Also, it looks at the proposed ERP and rather it fits the business model of Riordan (O’Brien & Marakas, 2009). Finally, technical feasibility has to be looked at, to determine if current technology can solve the problems address by Riordan (Motiwalla & Thompson, 2009). Proposed Systems Requirements List Some of the system requirements needed to improve the functionality of Riordan’s raw material and finished product tracking process are as follows (O’Brien & Marakas, 2009): * Unify the process at all facilities to track raw material coming into them. So purchasing can order material in a more efficient manner. * Unify the process at all facilities to monitor the production levels at each plant so management and sales can plan future strategies. * Unify the process at all facilities to give real-time inventory control so management can better plan and coordinate inventory control. Determination of Requirements The aspects that will ensure the information required for this project is gathered successfully are: knowing who should be involved, what questions to ask, formulating a plan, and deciding on the method of delivery. Every stakeholder needs to be identified and contacted for needed user requirements. Once the stakeholders have been identified creating a list of questions needing to be answered will assist in planning and determining the delivery method. Stakeholders can review the questions prior to their monthly stakeholder meeting. The different types of deliveries are system observation, interviews, questionnaires, document review, or Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions. Information gathering techniques will be used to determine the users’ needs. Based on these needs the appropriate ERP system can be designed and implemented. The following techniques will be used to gather information needed on the current process; system observation, interviews, questionnaires, document review, and Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions. Because much of the manufacturing, distribution, and inventory management are gathered through manual process, a system observation and interviews will be handled all at once to document the entire process and system throughout each location. Observing system usage will give great insight into who is using the system and how they are using it. System observation includes manual processes such as comparing shipping documents to scheduled orders receiving report. Stakeholders to be contacted for requirements will be limited to the following roles with Riordan Manufacturing; member of order shipping team, member of sales department, member of manufacturing team, truck drivers, shipping area supervisor, member of receiving area team, receiving clerk, and inventory clerk. A questionnaire is a cost-effective way of gathering additional supporting information. This method of gathering requirements will be used for truck drivers because they are on the road. The use of an online format for the questionnaires to be completed will be the most successful. During the system observation, interview, and questionnaire phase a list of current documents used will be compiled. These examples will be reviewed for information needed for the proposed ERP system. Prototyping Another popular method uses documentation but at a high level and combines with a process of rapid design and testing of a working model of a solution. This method is called prototyping. This method is very beneficial because it allows the users and stakeholders to see how their requirements will be used to produce the system process. Taking the high level requirements and turning it into a user interface that is visual to the user and is a working prototype to see how it will flow. This allows for interaction and can turn some requirements into different solutions and determine which requirements are mandatory and which ones are going to be optional. It provides a more real feel for what the system process will look like and allows for visual confirmation that this is what the company is looking for (Owens, 2009). List of Confirmed Requirements As it stands now the companies most sophisticated location is the San Jose office. The ERP that is residing in that location should be adapted throughout each other location. Along with this the installation of a VoIP system which will allow for a more flowing form of vocal communication between the company and its customers. It also allows the sales team or anyone who is outside the office to connect and accept phone calls even when not on site. All of the locations should have a software upgrade from the current to Microsoft Office 2010. Access points should be installed so that each department see’s only the information that is necessary for their use. This access should only be granted through the technical IT staff after being approved by their specific supervisor. All of the operating systems should be upgraded to Windows 7 because of the smooth use with all of its programs. Reporting should be done either using SQL or Microsoft Access to allow for customized reporting and integration of reports made for each department (Apollo Group, 2012).