Riordan Manufacturing Outsourcing Document Management System

Project Plan: Riordan Manufacturing Outsourcing Document Management System

Document Overview

The objective of this project plan is to capture project information and to provide a recap of the project. The document serves as a review to examine objectives and to capture project metrics, project successes, and constraints. The plan is a learning document aimed at continual improvement in Project Management, I/T, and business processes.

Project Overview: Statement of Need

As a result of a new quality system, Riordan clients started requesting the paper trail on processes for auditing purposes. A client can initiate an audit at any time and ask for back files from previous projects. Then it became evident Riordan had issues with document control. When conducting large manufacturing projects, the paper trail can be complex and the old filing system was causing the process to be difficult and time consuming. Therefore, the initiative to start scanning project documents into a document management system began in 2010. Because of the complexity of the projects, there were several documents in need of indexing into electronic files and the FTE to handle the workload has increased considerably. By outsourcing Riordan Manufacturing's document management system, both ABC Outsourcing and Riordan will reap benefits. Riordan will reduce operational costs and increase quality in non-core areas of the business, such as mailroom and file storage areas and ABC Outsourcing will increase its competiveness in the outsourcing marketplace. Moreover, because of the recent outsourcing of other areas of the business to China, Riordan will also benefit from the decreased cost associated with streamlining (Gillespie, 2012).

According to Schniederjan (2007), workflow optimization is a core to the manufacturing process. With the offshore outsourcing of the Riordan document management system, there are promises to reduce IT budgets within limitations (Weerakkody, 2010. p. 615). By outsourcing this non-core process, the company can focus other operational areas and minimize operating costs. Hence the company can concentrate on their main operating areas, e.g., developing new products, expanding market span, enhancing customer satisfaction, etc.

Project Overview: Project Objectives and Scope

The objective of the project is to streamline access to documentation. The intent is to make paper documents for the past 7 years available digitally. To facilitate this, Riordan Manufacturing has been decided to outsource the coding of the document management functionality.

* Front End Development New Function to Outsourcing Company

* Back End Development New Function to Outsourcing Company

* Server Hosting New Function to Company

* Ongoing Scanning Existing Function at Outsourcing Company

The scope of this project included the following tasks to support the business functionalities identified in the table above.

* Functional process reviews to determine training and procedural requirements for offshore associates and domestic associates

* Application technical reviews to determine requirements for offshore access

* IT infrastructure reviews to determine telecommunications, hardware, software, and support requirements for additional offshore associates

* Preparing/updating necessary procedure and end user training materials

* Connectivity testing to validate remote access by function and site

Project Process: Project Technical Specifications

The purpose of this document is to outline the sections of the system that will be provided by Riordan and which sections will be provided by ABC Outsourcing. This document will also act as a guide to developing the software required to scan, convert, and index legacy documents from various sources. An outline will also be provided that describes the data flow process, data storage locations, and secure user access portal.

1.0 Hardware

1.1 Servers

1.1.1 Cluster Servers should include three (3) HP DL380 G7 servers with dual Xeon processors, 128 GB DDR3 ECC memory, four (4) 128GB SSD boot drives in RAID 5 configuration, two quad 1GB Ethernet (network adapters should be teamed in four gigabit teams), Dual iSCSI adapters for storage backend. These servers will also provide the web access via SSL, fail over clustering, and remote management capabilities so Windows Server 2008 Enterprise ® is recommended in a 64 bit platform.

1.2 Storage

1.2.1 The EMC storage arrays should be purchased in duplicate to provide replication on the SAN level. The devices should also be capable of snap shots and dynamic capacity adjustments for future growth and data retention. They will contain redundant 6 GB iSCSI controllers to connect to the HP DL 380 iSCSI adapters. Drive space should be defined before purchase based on approximations acquired from the preliminary data calculations from ABC Outsourcing's recommendations.

1.3 Routers and Switches

1.3.1 Dual HP 2910l switches should be purchased to handle the load between the clustered servers and clients requesting information. Each switch will be connected to the servers in quadruple providing four gigabits to each server on each switch. Each switch will also be configured with redundant external power supplies in case the internal power supplies fail. Each location will require a router upgrade to handle the bandwidth requirements and new network recommendations. Recommend increasing bandwidth from fractional T1 pipe to metro Ethernet products, increasing bandwidth from 256k to 5mbs at each remote site and recommend 20mbs at the host headquarters site. In addition to the bandwidth upgrades, an MPLS private network protocol is recommended for U.S. based remote sites and VPN configuration between like routers recommended for the China location. All legacy switches that are not 1 GB capable should be upgraded as well.

1.4 Scanners

1.4.1 Fujitsu scanners recommended for legacy paper document scanning. Auto feeders required to minimize work load and provide automation to the process as much as possible. The scanners should be network