Intragrative Network Design

Integrative Network Design

Riordan Manufacturing

Overview

Riordan Manufacturing is one of the largest plastic manufacturers that specialize in plastic products including beverage containers, plastic fan parts, and custom plastic parts. Riordan manufacturing produces plastic parts to a large variety of customers including the Department of Defense, aircraft, automotive, and appliance manufactures bottlers and beverage makers. The company was first started by Dr. Riordan who leased the patents for plastic manufacturing In 1991 Dr. Riordan founded the company after realizing the large demand for plastic parts to this day Riordan Manufacturing employs 550 employees with a $46 million dollar yearly gross.

The rapid growth of Riordan Manufacturing over the past few years has put a strain on the information systems of the company. With the acquiring of additional locations with desperate systems has lead Riordan Manufacturing to operational inefficiencies, particular in the inventory management and manufacturing areas. This has resulted in a overview and redesign of the current telephone and data network system of Riordan Manufacturing.

Riordan Manufacturing has been recommended to replace all hardware with Pentium IV class systems with 2.5 Gigahertz processor or greater and also to upgrade all servers from Windows NT to Windows 2003 Server. The ram for the computers also will require an upgrade. The networking switches and data lines need to be upgraded to support gigabit Ethernet, fiber-optic transmission protocols with 3-5 Mbps transmission speeds.

Riordan Manufacturing should put in a place a unified database management system in all locations. Oracle database management system is highly recommended for Riordan manufacturing. Oracle will enhance the inventory manufacturing process and warehouse management capabilities. Each location should manage an Oracle platform in a database configuration.

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) software package such as IQMS should be implemented to establish a unified system platform. IQMS system will help improve the efficiency and productivity of Riordian Manufacturing's operations. Installing 100base-T Ethernet switches will be essential along with the use of encryption and firewalls