Union Pacific manages over 33,000 craft professionals including conductors and engineers who are managed through unions via collective bargaining agreements; when these agreements aren’t followed, claims are required to be submitted for review. The student team will redesign and deliver a fully electronic claims system to replace the current, outdated, paper based process that doesn’t meet current needs.
Abstract:
Union Pacific currently employs 37,000 employees across its vast network. About 90 percent of the workforce at Union Pacific is unionized, which includes our craft professionals, managed through collective bargaining agreements. This chunk of our workforce is made up of 15 unique Labor Unions, resulting in hundreds of contracts across our system. The Labor Relations department relies on a claim management system that presents many operational challenges:
(1) Predominately paper based (via US mail) claim intake which results in time delays, potential manual entry errors and a bottleneck at claim intake;
(2) Lacks adaptability to new logic and ColdFusion reporting edits; and
(3) Outdated system that cannot process basic, functional system upgrades (freezing rows, auto save, system time out, etc.)
The student team of data analysts and developers, supported by current expert UP users, will evaluate the existing system, its failure points in the business process and the Oracle data tables that it relies on, and capture the business team’s functional needs due to evolving processes. The ultimate goal is a complete system redesign, addressing:
- front end at claim intake
- workflow of the application system
- dashboard visualization with working notifications
- administrative UI to allow minimal reliance on IT developer coding
- security levels to include/restrict access for external Union leadership
- interconnectivity to existing UP systems
- report creation and form/letter/submission document capability
This team will develop a system for the Workforce Resources Labor Relations department, removing roadblocks for them complete simple tasks and successfully do their jobs.
The 2021 UP Cohort team will deliver a comprehensive business process and UI design, research the existing data structure and make adjustments where needed, as well as develop the components of the system.
UP Development Environment:
The new system will be developed using Oracle, Angular, and Java services. Students will be able to access the environment via virtual machines in the UP system.
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