Running head: RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM

Riordan Manufacturing HR System Name: BSA/375 Date: Instructor:

RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM

Riordan Manufacturing HR System Task Hugh McCauley, COO of Riordan Manufacturing submitted a request to Schaffer Consulting to develop a state of the art HR information system that incorporates a variety of existing HR tools into a single integrated application. Schaffer Consulting is to define all business requirements for the new HR system development, as well as create a project plan containing the following aspects: Tasks Resources Schedule Budget Company Background Riordan Manufacturing is an international plastics manufacturer with facilities in Georgia, Michigan, California, as well as in China. Founded in 1991 by Dr. Michael Riordan; today the company has over 550 employees and is a Fortune 1000 enterprise with annual revenue of over $1 billion. The majority of the companys customers are business to business, which include aircrafts-, automotive, bottle and appliance manufacturers, as well the government. Current HR system The companys HRIS (Human Resource Information System) was installed in 1992 and is part of the Riordans financial package. HRIS is able to track the following employee information: Personal information

RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM Pay rate Tax exemptions Hire date Seniority date Organizational information Vacation house Workers compensation is not managed internally but by a third-party provider, there is no

central employee file database or even filing area, salary information is tracked in an Excel sheet by the compensation manager and employee training records are kept in a separate Excel sheet by the training and development specialist which means there is no centralized system for record keeping and no automation (Apollo Group, 2005, 2006, 2012). Plan Hugh McCauley anticipates six months to develop a human resource system to meets all of the requirements. Before the development of such a system can begin, it is crucial to have a clear understanding of the current HRs business functions. Each location utilizes a different finance, accounting and HR system which mean that all locations need to be taken into consideration during the assessment process and need to be analyzed comprehensively. According to Burback (1998), The analysis phase defines the requirements of the system, independent of how these requirements will be accomplished. This phase defines the problem that the customer is trying to solve. The deliverable result at the end of this phase is a requirement document. Ideally, this document states in a clear and precise fashion what is to be built. This analysis represents the ``what'' phase. The requirement document tries to capture the requirements from the customer's perspective by defining goals and interactions at a level

RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM removed from the implementation details (para. 1). A change of Riordans HRIS system will also have an impact on the current financial system. Each location faces different finance and accounting related issue, which are caused by a non-standardization of financial and accounting systems. The proposed solution will ensure that the new HR system is utilized at each location therefor forming a centralized HR system. Requirement Gathering Techniques To fully understand the objective of the project, it is crucial to understand the current system, including the benefits and shortcomings. Requirement elicitation, which is the the

practice of obtaining the requirements of a system from users, consumers and other stakeholders (Sommerville, Sawyer, 1997, p. 75) needs to be performed. There are various methods of requirement gathering; one of the methods is the traditional method, which entails interviews, observations and review of business documentation as well current business procedures. Another method of requirement gathering is the modern method, which entails utilizes different techniques of information gathering: Joint Application Design (JAD) and prototyping. JAD is a technique that started being used in the late 1070s by IBM, and it consists of bringing together key users, managers, and systems analysts involved in the analysis of the current system (Valacich, George, & Hoffer, 2009, p. 148). Even though the discussions between different users can become very intense and heated, the outcome of those JAD sessions is usually very effective. By observing all the different users, the analyst has the ability to observe shortcomings of the system, which are pointed out by conflicts between different users of the system.

Requirement Gathering Techniques utilized by Schaffer Consulting

RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM

According to the Standish Group Report, only 32% of software projects are completed on-time and on-budget, even more astonishing is that over 44% of projects will be canceled before are completed. The three major reasons that determine the outcome of a project are user involvement, executive management support, and a clear statement of requirements (The Standish Group International, 2009). To ensure the success of the Human Resource project, Schaffer Consulting requests full cooperation from upper management as well as all the staff members during the requirement gathering process as well as the development / testing process. Due to different systems being used at the various locations, Schaffer Consulting will have to travel to each location to perform the requirement gathering techniques described below. After all the requirements have been gathered and defined, Riordan Manufacturing will have to agree to the findings, as well as agree that any change requests submitted by Riordan thereafter will increase the project time as well as the project cost. Requirement gathering techniques utilized by Schaffer Consulting: Interviews: o Schaffer Consulting will interview staff using closed and open ended questions at each location, as well as any third-party vendors that currently perform HR tasks and/or integrate with the current HRIS system Observation: o Schaffer Consulting will observe staff performing tasks in the current HRIS system during business hours. It is important to have full cooperation of staff. All of the staff needs to be aware that Schaffer Consulting may ask questions during the observation phase to better understand the current system Analyzing Procedures and other documents

RIORDAN MANUFACTURING HR SYSTEM o Schaffer Consulting will review any existing system and organizational documentation to determine details about the current system setup in regards to existing problems, Government requirements, key users, third party vendors, information processing within the system, etc. Joint Application Design (JAD) o This requires a at least 1-2 representatives from each location and each

department to join a meeting offsite to determine areas of conflict as well as areas of agreement in regards to the current system. Depending on the findings by utilizing the above mentioned requirement techniques, other requirement gathering techniques might be added.

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Reference Apollo Group. (2005, 2006, 2012). Riordan Manufacturing. Retrieved from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/secure/aapd/cist/vop/Business/Riordan/HR/HRIS.asp Sommerville, Ian., Sawyer, P. (1997). Requirements Engineering A good practice guide . : Wiley . The Standish Group International, . (2009). Chaos Summary 2009. , (), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.portal.state.pa.us/.../standish_group_chaos_summary_2009_pdf Valacich, J. S., George, J. F., & Hoffer, J. A. (2009). Essentials of System Analysis and Design (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.