Fundamentals of Business System Development

Fundamentals of Business Systems Development Human Resource Refigure ration Theron A. Wilson December 12, 2007 University of Phoenix BSA/375 Chloris Wright Riordan Manufacturers are looking for the redesigning of their Human Resource department. This will involve the transferring of their legacy system into a more advance human resource networking system. The company is asking for a proposal that will describe the techniques that will be used in order to gather the information that will be needed for the transformation. Also, the proposal will give a detail analysis that will be included in the design methods that will be involve in the configuration of the new system. Within the proposal, there will be a listing of the key factors that reinsure the organization that the information that was obtained was gathered successful. And as the conclusion, an explanation of the scope and feasibility of the project will be exhibited. The process will be implemented a collaboration of phases within the systems development life cycle. The initial process begins with the developing a team that will be design to handle any situation that may come during the course of the project. This part of the process is prudent in order to accomplish the goal of the project; in which is the successfully redesigning the H & R department of Riordan. Therefore, with the collaborated efforts of the team and Riordan's I. T. department, the process will be implemented in a collaboration of phases that is established by the systems development life cycle. The beginning of the cycle involves the planning phase. Defining the problem will be the first agenda that will be address in the proposal. Riordan's Human Resource department is the problem domain. It is currently composed of independently-filed paperwork that is maintained by each managerial personnel. Managers are also responsible for the tracking of FMLA absences. A change to any employees' information is submitted onto special forms by the employee's manager and process by the payroll clerk. Training and developmental files are established on an Excel spreadsheet and is maintained by the training and development specialist. Records about the workers' compensation are maintained by an independent contractor. Each recruiter maintains applicant information for open positions. Resumes are filed in a central storage area, and an Excel spreadsheet is used to track the status of applicants. The compensation manager keeps an Excel spreadsheet with the results of job analyses, salary surveys and individual compensation decisions. Employee relations specialists track information about complaints, grievances, harassment complaints, etc. in locked files in their offices. The problem that exists within the human resource department is the absence of an automated networking system. Second, there is not limitation set on those who should be included in dealing with these confidential files. Next, there is not a centralized hub established that can maintain all of the records that need to be kept about the employees for Riordan. Third, the contracting of a third party provider to maintain confidential records of each individual that work for the Riordan Manufacturers is probably is not the best alternative to maintaining the security of the individuals' information within the organization. The production of a project schedule will be the produced to document the design of the project; the guidelines that they will follow; and the timeline that will be executed in order to meet their goals. The project will begin with the evaluation of Riordan's I. T. department. This information is required to gain information about the company's computer and database system in order to see that system can use or handle the upgrades that will be necessary in order to update the H & R department. In order to establish this goal, the staff will be used to gain information in order to guarantee the successfulness of the project. Information will be gathered by way of completing questionnaires that will be given to users of the system. Once the questionnaires have been evaluated, the team will proceed with determining what will be needed with the H & R department. Once this part of the plan has been executed, the team will developed a proposal to present to Riordan Manufacturing. Once the previous steps has been initiated, there would be a meeting with the corporation is in order to determine the budget for the needed recommendations as well as to determine the length of time the corporation is requiring for the team to be able to finish the proposed upgrades. This is crucial because this will determine the set budget that the team will be obligated to use during the transformation; in which the proposed budget for this operation is set at $150,000. The proposed time will set at three months. The next step is the documenting of the project plan at this stage of project development will help team members adhere to the established strategy, schedule, budget, and definition of quality during the course of a project. The records will reflect the project overview. Within the project overview, there will be a detail description of the project scope and technical information. Then the team will record the project's strategy, schedule, budget, quality definition, and compile the information into a management plan that will be distribute amongst the team member. Once the previous stages of the cycle have been met, the team will decide if the scope of the project, and in conjunction with the set innovation budget established by Riordan, is feasible to achieve the renovations that are required for the H & R department. The team has established that need for the renovation is relevant for Riordan Manufacturing. Second, the team have established that the proposed renovations will is definite a need for the Riordan. A simulation of the proposed system is suggested to be carried out to predict the outcome before the actual project starts. Now the team will develop a written quotation that will acknowledge the quotes from the suppliers and technicians to guarantee that the renovations will not exceed the set budget. Once these conditions have been met, the team will instruct the manufacturer that the conditions have been met and set a date of which the operation will begin. To begin the next phase, the team will design an architectural design to establish the layout of the proposed plan. This process will give a detailed description of how the H's activities will be performed. The system analyst will also include a description of the information system's architecture in accordance of the data, processes, interfaces and network within his or her report. The system analyst's primary goal is to eliminate H&R's processes that is comprise mostly of paper forms or electronic files that scattered throughout different departments that do not link together. The goal is to put in place a fully automated HRIS that achieves improvement in the accuracy and currency of data. Also, the system will allow the tracking of individuals that are moving throughout the Riordan's system. Furthermore, the system will be able to quickly aggregate, analyze, and use data in more of a real-time transaction. It will be able to give projections of potential needs of the workforce; while decreasing the labor requirement that is currently employed within the H&R department. The system analyst's plan is to design the HRIS system using a distributed architecture. This particular architecture is design with the amenities that are required to develop a more centralized H department. The H central location will be at the corporate office. The corporate will be the site of the centralized mainframe computer that is server-based. This will allow user to access date concurrently within a secured environment. Data will be store on a centrally-based database unit. The database unit will allow easier updates, searching and analysis of information collected within the system. Another characteristic of the new system will include web-accessibility. Web-accessibility will allow the interactions amongst the Riordan's HRIS system to be access by way of the Internet. This will eliminate the installation of client applications to each users' individual desktop; and at the same time, reduces the time that is involve in deployment and training requirements. This procedure will allow immediate accessibility for anyone with an Internet or LAN connection. The new system will allow scalability and extensibility. A system of wireless devices will be installed in each location. This will allow the H department to network with the other facilities; hence, developing a LAN. Once this procedure has taken place, a Wan will be developing to connect all of the facilities to the corporate location. Any user or outside entities will have access to information through the Internet. An intranet will be established for those that are employees of Riordan. Password-protected login logarithms will be put in place for security stability. There also will be role-based accounts set up to prevent non-authorized staff from the viewing of confidential data that only should be access by upper management positions. The new system design will provide HRIS with total automation; thus, providing a standardization of all manual processes. The upgrades will be performed on the current network at all three facilities, chronologically, to ensure implementation of the system is accomplished without any issue. Now the design of the new H & R department has been established, the team will now begin the project. Riordan has approved the proposed plans and now it is time to begin the implementation phase of the project. During this process, the team will be implementing the proposed plan using a strict process that will allow them to be aware of any problems that they may face while executing the plan. The process will take an approximately 6 months, allowing the team to deal with the formalities of the process and the geographical areas that the team. This process involves six points of implementation: (1) coding, (2) testing, (3) installation, (4) documentation, (5) training, and (6) support. The application that is being installed will allow the H & R department to communicate by way of the Internet or Intranet. The team will begin at the corporate office first. The team with the collaborated efforts of Riordan's I. T. department, with begin initializing the new applications to one of the servers. This will allow the team and the I. T. department to analyze the performance of the new application within the system. Once the application has been tested, the team will direct the technicians to proceed onto the remaining servers. This process will be documented to assure that it was successful. Afterwards, the process of re figuring each of the desktops will be initiated. During this process, the team will be programming the computers to accept the new that was installed in the servers. A build and smoke test will be use by the programmers to eliminate any errors within the application. Once the programmers have acknowledged that the process has been tested and documented with no errors, then they will proceed onto the installation process. The installation process will involve installing wireless devices among their Ethernet connections. There are two benefits for the installation of these equipments. First, the Riordan organization will be establishing a WAN amongst their companies in America as well as Japan. Second, the processes of the H & R department could be executed through the company's Intranet cite. This process involves connecting the wireless bridge to where the current modem now resides. Afterwards, each computer will be program to accept the new signaling that will be established with the installation of the wireless devices. Once the previous process has been established, the team will finally begin the process of transferring of the legacy files onto the new system. The team will outsource this project. The outsourced team only job will be to gather all of the paper files and old data that was store in the server and apply them to the new application. This procedure will be somewhat timely, but will not exceed the budget. While trying to achieve the expectations of an utomated H & R department, the team will initiate a parallel operation. The team will is using this process to eliminate the risk of system failure and losing all the data that was inputted by the outsourced team. This process will last about two weeks to give the team to analyze and rectify any situation that may happen. The team will now begin to document the response of the new system. If the prev ious process goes according to plan, then the team will begin the training process. The team will train all the users of the new system, as well as some of the I. T. professionals that work for Riordan's corporate office. The training process will take approximately two weeks. The ultimate goal of the training is to allow the users to understand the new system. The employees will be trained on different areas such as setting their login logarithms, as well as the navigation of the website. These training will also be documented. The team with create a support staff for that will be trained for quick response time. The support staff will also be able to initialize performance tests. The staff will be on-call and also can be reached by way of email. Also users can fill out change request and error reports to the support staff. These requests will be evaluated and performed in a sense of urgency manner. Their will be quality assurance personnel embedded within the organization to assure the quality of the new system. The team will place an on-site technical support person to handle situations that may occur with the operation of the new system. Reference Kelly Ph. D. , John C. (2001). A comparison of Four Design Methods. Department of Computer Science, Furman University. Retrieved November 25, 2007 from www. furman. edu/computerscience. University of Phoenix. (Ed. ). (2004). Creating Satisfy Customers [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. American Marketing Association. Retrieved November 25, 2007 from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/resource/resource. asp. University of Phoenix. (Ed. ). (2005). Project Planning and Feasibility Analysis [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. AllenWeb. Retrieved November 25, 2007 from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/resource/resource. asp. University of Phoenix. (Ed. ). (1990). Qualitative Educating and Research Methods [University of Phoenix Custom Edition e-text]. Sage. Retrieved November 25, 2007 from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/resource/resource. asp. Human Resource Configuration