Subject: (no subject) Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 13:58:48 -0400 From: Kirk Pruhs To: kirk@cs.pitt.edu Cooporative Education with United Parcel Service

Co-Op Experience with United Parcel Service

Shankhadeep Shome

1. An Introduction to Myself

My Name is Shankhadeep Shome. I am Computer Science undergrad in University of Pittsburgh. I will graduate April 2001 if everything works out. I decided to do a co-op because of the following reasons....

I. It is a great learning experience in Real World software development
II. It allows you apply the skills learned in the class room.
III. Most importantly, people actually use your programs or scripts that you write!

2. About where I worked

United Parcel Service is the largest privately owned shipping company in the world. Their infrastucture is stagerringly complicated, but their core focus is very simple. Basically, if you ask a UPS employee what is UPS all about, they will answer, we ship packages. UPS does a lot more infact, UPS has branched out to do financial services. UPS is also an commercial airline carrier and many more.

2. The CO-OP Experience

I did a three term co-op with UPS, New Stanton, PA hub. (its the primary depot from where all packages are shipped in Western Pennsylvania)

I worked with the following tools..

I. Cold Fusion 4.5
II. Oracle 7 database
III. SQL Server 7

2. The Experience

Co-op Term one : Summer 1999

UPS New Stanton was just beginning to use their private Intranet to a greater degree. I helped migrate many of their ACCESS databases to Script driven SQL server databases. Now, this seems to be pretty straightforward, but thats where I was wrong. The New Stanton UPS Industrial Engineering department has been using Microsoft Access 95/97 for the last 4 years. Every single database of had tons of complicated reports generated by local tables as well as tables linked remotely by an ODBC driver. First I had to learn exactly what these reports so I can write my own with help from co-workers who actually use these reports everyday. Basically I was trying to get the look and feel of Microsoft access Provides with their forms. This proved extremely challenging. Now you might be thinking, "Wait, whats so hard about scripting" but the fact is people who are actually using the pages were asking for something that just couldn't be done. Javascript, ASP, Cold fusion are really meant for fast deployment with an emphasis for speed, not for fancy GUI; however I was able to work around most of the problems and the web interface made report generation significantly easier. It is a fact, that report generation with remotely linked tables takes a long time on Microsoft Access. The web interface was able to cut the time down by almost 10 times on certain reports because everything is done server side. The main concern was the interface, and for the whole summer I tackled project on one hand and co-workers on the other. I was definitely not isolated into a cube or stuck in a corner office. Everyday was an experince, and I learned as much about Industrial Engineering as I care to know.

Co-op Term two : Summer 2000

I did a lot of scripting with ASP and Cold Fusion during this term. This term was almost one year later and things in UPS had changed a lot. New people in the web group made it exciting, and this time the focus was definitely more on new content and web based tools instead of migration. The Oracle database called "Info Library" was ( and still is ) the main data center for storing information but during this term UPS New Stanton and the Laurel Mountain region started to migrate many of the their local databases to SQL Server 7. This gave the web group much more freedom to create more useful webpages, because we didn't have to go through the Corporate Office in Atlanta to create and populate new tables. Last term I didn't have enought priveledges to create "views" in the Info Library database because the corporate office did not want an intern to have such a complete access to such a potentially sensitive database. Anyway, this term I did much of work with my new co-worker, Rudy Krall. Rudy is very good at what he does, and after a long day at the computer he goes back home and (like a true Computer Science guy) uses his home computer. I learned a lot from Rudy. We tackled some interesting projects, like an Web Based Employee Survey and a training page for new Employees to look at who maybe be interested in web development. I learned a lot about managing many projects at the same time. Usually we would do a rapid prototype with a front end, then ask for opinions from the end users, then go back and do the back end. Another major emphasis was on good documentation because we wanted these tools to last for a long time, we wanted them to be modular as possible so the end users who were already going though a difficult phase of using the web browser for much of their work, wouldn't have to learn another complicated new tool.

Co-op Term three : Spring 2001

The last semester I shifted focus from web development to Tech support just because I wanted to try something different. Trouble shooting and building PCs was a the primary focus of my final semester here. You could compare my group to the help desk in CIS, except the help desk in UPS call us when there is any problems that they cannot solve. The Technology Support Group, which is what we are designated handle all the hardware and software in the building. The New Stanton building has almost 500 pcs and also 30 - 40 servers which must run at all times to ensure reliable package delevery. The two major operating systems UPS uses are Windows NT and IBM OS/2. I started the semester out by doing something interesting. I started by building PCs that UPS will give away to charity. UPS is a company that takes pride in the ammount of community service they do, and every year the New Stanton Hub gives away almost 50 computers to charity. After that I spend most of my time trouble shooting an aging network. UPS is still using 4 Mbps Token ring, and currently in a transition to ethernet. Because these two network archetectures are like night and day, many network shortages are occouring. Half the time both a token ring and an ethernet card has to be installed in a new computer. When things get screwy, you can almost always bet its a network problem. Most of the others technicians are very good. The TSG department has 3-4 active technicians to handle all the work the whole day. Many of them are quite young and just recently married. They are very excited about interns, they put co-ops on an equal footing and give you responsibility right away.

3. Conclusion

Co-op is an exciting experience. I really enjoyed my three semesters at UPS. It was a great learning experience. I hope that Pitt and UPS keep up this outstanding relationship because many Pitt student stand to benefit from a Co-op experience where I worked. The most important thing I learned is that migration from an old database to a new one, or a migration from one network archetecture to another one takes a major toll on company resources. This is the reasons standards instead of propritery software or hardware is so important. UPS spends millions of dollars every year just trying to mangae their vast yet inherently incompatible archetectures. This is a problem many companies face and I am sure that where ever I work in the future, I will be spending a large majority of the time dealing with these kinds of issues.