Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing is a global manufacturer of plastic containers and parts through the technique of plastic injection molding. This successful company has positioned itself as an industry leader and is listed as a Fortune 1000 company. Over the years, Riordan Manufacturing has expanded into many markets and currently operates internationally in four geographic locations. Production of plastic beverage containers occurs at the plant in Albany, Georgia; custom plastic parts are produced at the plant in Pontiac, Michigan; and plastic fan parts are produced at the facilities in Hangzhou, China. The company's research and development is achieved at the corporate headquarters in San Jose, California.

While Riordan maintains state of the art manufacturing equipment, the technologies used to track manufacturing and inventory are historic and outdated. Dr. Riordan-the company's founder and president-in collaboration with the executive team, has implemented aggressive sales plan intended to increase sales to the $50 million revenue mark. In order to support this agenda, the manufacturing and inventory systems must be updated.

Current Incoming Inventory Management:

Currently, the inventory process is initiated with the Receiving Area Supervisor comparing raw materials, which arrive in supplier trucks, against a weekly schedule before the crew is allowed to touch or unload the materials. Once the materials have been verified, the crew is then allowed to move the raw goods to manufacturing. Due to the historic recordkeeping methods of the company, the records of the transactions for that particular day, taken by the RAS (Receiving Area Supervisor), are presented at the end of the day when the RAS can present a complete list of the day's activity to the inventory clerk. The inventory clerk then enters the data manually into an inventory system. (See Figure 1). This entire process takes several man hours. As incoming supplies increase to meet the increased manufacturing needs which have been mandated by the new sales goals, the man hours will increase allowing for increased human error.