Union Pacific is the second largest landowner in the United States (after the U.S.A Federal Government) and many people at times require access to the land managed by UP’s Real Estate department. The student team will redesign and deliver a new business system to replace the current paper based process.
Abstract:
UP’s Real Estate department manages the thousands of acres of land near our 32,200 miles of track. The current workflow and data storage of the department is outdated. The current process presents many operational challenges:
(1) Predominantly paper and fax based and requires physical referencing of original documents. Some of those documents originate from the founding of Union Pacific and a few are even signed by Abraham Lincoln
(2) Includes manual data entry with a high error rate
(3) Poor customer experience involving paper applications and communication through USPS.
The student team of data analysts and developers, supported by current expert UP users, will evaluate the existing paper applications, the ideal business process, and the data systems that this workflow will need to rely on. The ultimate goal is a complete design of the front end, the workflow of the application system, and the database structure it will rely on. This team will bring the system into the 21st century by providing fully electronic workflows for all sub teams within Real Estate.
The 2021 UP Cohort team will deliver a comprehensive business process, data structure, and UI design as well as developing 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.
More Information
Front End Programming / Design Implementation (1 – 2 students)
Specific Skills: General Programming (EECS 281 level) and implementation of UI/UX guidelines.
Likely Majors: CS, DATA, SI
Database Design (1 student)
Specific Skills: Advanced database skills (equivalent to EECS 484)
Likely Majors: CS, DATA
Back End Programming (1 – 2 students)
Specific Skills: Programming skills (EECS 281 level completed)
Likely Majors: CS
Business Process Design (1 student)
Specific Skills: Business process analysis – (must have some knowledge of programming)
Likely Majors: IOE, BBA (with CS Minor), CS (with BBA minor)
Sponsor Mentor
Addison ParkerAddison Parker joined Union Pacific in 2016 in UP’s Corporate Systems Group supporting Financial Applications. In the past few years with the railroad, Addison has accumulated multiple IT responsibilities including software development and project management work on several systems. The systems are largely financial in nature and include predictive costing, invoicing, revenue, and real estate, which includes all of freight revenue totaling more than $20 billion per year. Prior to joining UP, Addison was a student at the University of Michigan in the College of Engineering. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a minor in Multidisciplinary Design. Addison was a member of the 2015 Union Pacific Multidisciplinary Design Team.
Faculty Mentor
Bill Arthur
Bill is a Lecturer III in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. Most recently he has been teaching EECS 183: Elementary Programming Concepts. He previously worked in various roles in automotive manufacturing at Ford Motor Company and U.S. Manufacturing Corporation, and has mentored Union Pacific MDP projects before. (For more information, visit http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~warthur/)
Course Substitutions: Honors, ChE Elective, CS MDE/Capstone, CE MDE, Data Science Capstone, EE MDE, IOE Senior Design
Internship/Summer Opportunity: 2021 Summer Internships (in Omaha, NE) are required for students who participate on this team. Students will have one (1) week from offer to accept the project placement. By accepting a project offer, students are accepting an internship offer conditional of the criteria noted below.
- All project students must participate in the Union Pacific summer internship program. All students must:
– Cumulative University of Michigan GPA > 3.0 preferred
- Offer letters will include pay rates, dates, and conditions of the internship.
Citizenship Requirements: This project is open to US Citizens or Permanent Residents only.
IP/NDA: Students will sign standard University of Michigan IP/NDA documents.
Meeting Time: This team will meet with faculty and industry sponsors on Fridays from 3 – 5 PM Eastern Time in Winter 2021.