Riordan Manufacturing Inc Networking Case Study

Riordan Manufacturing Inc.

Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics manufacturer employing 550 people and projected annual earnings of $46 billion (Apollo Group, 2012). Riordan Industries owns the Fortune 1000 enterprise with excess revenue of $1 billion. Riordan Manufacturing has plastic plants in Albany GA, Pontiac, MI, and a facility in Hangzhou, China. Headquarters is located in San Jose, CA. Major Contracts are automotive parts manufacturers, aircraft manufacturers, Department of Defense, beverage makers and bottlers, and appliance manufactures.

Background Information

The company was founded by Dr. Riordan, a professor of chemistry. He started Riordan Plastics, Inc in 1991. His focus was on research and development of existing patents but after Dr. Riordan purchased a fan manufacturing plant in Pontiac, MI the company was developed into a manufacturing business. In 1993 Dr. Riordan acquired a manufacturing plant in Albany, GA the business expanded with the production of plastic beverage containers. In 2000, Riordan Manufacturing became a global enterprise after the fan manufacturing operation was move to China.

Request for Proposal

Riordan Manufacturing has put in a request to upgrade its current network infrastructure in order to improve overall agility and improvement of expenditures. They have specifically requested the installation and integration of the following infrastructures:

• Implement all locations with a common wide area network (WAN) protocols

• Replace administrative networks at each plant with wireless local area network (WLANs) ability

• Install voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) at each plant to include China factory

In order to successfully complete Riordan’s request a team of experts will be required to analyze current physical and logical network infrastructure. It is imperative for the team of experts to be highly technical, professional, and ensure a deep understanding of business needs and expectations. Other aspects of consideration will be regulatory requirements, specifically data preservation and personal identifiable information (PII), customer satisfaction, and overall security concerns.

Current Network Configuration

Riordan Manufacturing has a total of three manufacturing plants and corporate headquarters, consisting of four major local area networks (LAN) connected via one WAN. The connection between the China location and headquarters is via a satellite link. Riordan’s network is a mixture of 100BaseT and 1000BaseF backbone infrastructure. A network backbone is part of the network to which segments and significant shared devices (such as routers, switches, and servers) connect. A backbone is sometimes referred to