Riordan Manufacturing is a leading manufacturer in plastic injection molding, using innovative plastic designs in manufacturing plastic bottles, fans, heart valves, medical stents, and custom plastic parts that elaborate “attention to detail, extreme precision and enthusiastic quality control” (Riordan Manufacturing, 2006). It has its facilities scattered around states inside and outside the U.S., such as San Jose in California, Albany, Georgia, Pontiac, Michigan, and Hangzhou in China (Riordan Manufacturing, 2006). It employs about 550 people inside and outside the U.S., has annual earnings of a total of $46 million, and has revenues that reach more than $1 billion (Riordan Manufacturing, 2006). For this, Riordan Manufacturing is among the Fortune 1000 companies, with their focuses centered on the Six Sigma, the R&D, and the ISO 9000 standards.
As of now, Riordan Manufacturing faces socio-economic challenges brought by trends and changes in the environment. The housing market nowadays affects the company’s customers, especially the appliance manufacturers. Other customers are directly affected by changes in the demand for their particular products. Others, on the other hand, are affected by health care services and the availability of health insurances. As for customers like the Department of Defense, this type of customers is directly affected by changes in funding and appropriations. To be stronger in terms of socio-economic challenges, Riordan Manufacturing should design specific changes that would improve the inventory and manufacturing processes through computer system utilization. Improving inventory and manufacturing processes leads to less costs and more profits by lessening marketing inconsistencies, which computer system utilization could significantly deter.
The computer system utilization project aims to multiply profits in the future by improving systems performance through a new benchmark called ‘Effective System Performance’ test or ESP test. This test is designed to “measure system-level performance, including such factors as job scheduling efficiency, handling of large jobs and shutdown-reboot times” (Wong, Oliker, Kramer, Kaltz, & Bailey, 2000, p.1). It can also be used in studying effects of scheduling policies and parameters (Wong et al., 2000, p.1). The key is to target system management effectiveness through the utilization of sustained computational performance in the system-level, as it measures system utilization that common metrics like LINPACK and NAS Parallel Benchmarks are unable to provide.
The computer system of Riordan Manufacturing needs to be improved because, despite the fact that the real gross domestic product growth has been showing some weaknesses since 2005 (Riordan Manufacturing, 2005, p.3), this type of specific systems in the company directly influences the inventory and manufacturing processes in the future. Because the company’s most typical customers are those that are in the area of “automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, the Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers” (Riordan Manufacturing, 2006), there is a need to be very consistent with the inventory and manufacturing processes, since major trends and events could directly influence these customers. The computer system would be able to aid the company in evaluating its high performance systems in order to monitor the effects of the changes in configuration and software upgrades. This would be very useful because it centers on a day-to-day center operation through the use of a computer system utilization project in a benchmark that would measure the company’s system level performance.
To be able to come up with effective computer system utilization project that is centered on constant implementation of a benchmark called the ESP, there are important business requirements that the company should acquire, which would generally include the following: first is a large computer center like NERSC, which would do the workload; second are two full configuration jobs, with partition sizes equal to total number of processors; third is system administration that would take care of parallel applications and utilizations; fourth and final is the financial resources for the procurement of these entries. There should be meetings and assemblies in determining the exact amount of currency that should be invested.
Business constraints in connection to this project would include one or more of the following: first is the number and the ability of the employees to implement such a project; second is the availability to acquire such computer system; third are the annual earnings and revenues of the company that should not decrease to more than 10% in annual rate; fourth is the socio-economic environment of the countries; fifth are the changing trends (e.g., health, defense) that may directly or indirectly influence the implementation of the project; finally, the leadership capabilities mostly defined by groups inside the company.
It is for the best assumption that this business proposal would turn out to be successful, especially if the constraints are being balanced or averted. However, because the economy has generally been on the slide these past years, it is evident that the chances for the success of this project would have to rely on the company’s internal environment. The external environment poses threats in relation to the socio-economy, the trend, and the other major events. The way to counteract it would be to push the internal environment forward – forceful enough to reach the fulfillment of the objective even with the presence of potent challenges, especially outside the company.
Creating a business requirements definition for system upgrades or improvement needs the processing of critical analysis on those that can be mentioned under the internal and external environments. However, to be able to come up with better numbers in the turnover, a computer system utilization project has to be planned and administered well, since such a project would boost the company by improving its inventory and manufacturing processes.
References
- Riordan Manufacturing. (2005, June 16). Economic forecast for Riordan Manufacturing. Retrieved June 21, 2008
- Riordan Manufacturing. (2006). Retrieved June 21, 2008
- Wong, A.T., Oliker, L., Kramer, W.T., Kaltz, T.L., & Bailey, D.H. (2000). ESP: a system utilization benchmark. Retrieved June 21, 2008