EIN 5322, Engineering Management

FloridaInternationalUniversity

Fall Semester 2007, Class Project

Zoran Spasic

ENGINEERING ETHICS AND PRODUCT SAFTY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………....2

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND VALUES………………………………….3

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSABILITIES………………………………...4

CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND POSTEMPLOYMENT LIMITATIONS...5

WHISTLE-BLOWING………………………………………………………..6

REFERENCES………………………………………………………………..7

INTRODUCTION

Up until present time Engineering does not have a single uniform standard system of ethical conduct across the entire profession. On the contrary: ethical approaches vary somewhat by discipline and jurisdiction, and are influenced by whether the engineers are independently providing professional services to clients, or the public is employed in government service, or if they are employees of an enterprise creating products for sale. Engineering ethics is the field of applied ethics which examines and sets standards for engineers and their obligations to the public, their clients, employers and the entire profession.

Licensed Professional Engineers are governed by statute, and have consistent codes of professional ethics, while on the other side Engineers working in industry are governed by various laws including but not limited to: product liability laws whistle blowing and quite often are relaying on principles of business ethics rather than engineering ethics. They are not formally accredited by government agencies, and their professional relationships are more likely to be employee-employer relationship.

Although the engineers in industry and license professional engineers are somewhat different in their focus, they face similar ethical issues and arrive at the similar conclusions, as they have to observe at all times health, welfare and public safety while performing services only in area of their competence. National Society of Professional Engineers known also as NSPE has sought to expend professional licensure and a code of ethics across the field regardless of practice area or employment sector, holding the engineers responsible to issue public statements only in objective and truthful manner.

Different Countries have different engineering professional societies and uphold their engineers to the codes of ethics that are not identical to those in the US where some societies have prepared the codes of ethics that are in fact dating back to the early decades of the twentieth century. These codes of ethics are by now incorporated into the regulatory laws of most states.

With the on going globalization of the entire World, it is becoming quite obvious that even though the ethics and engineering codes are somewhat different, the need to find a common values is grater than ever before, in order to provide successful product, services etc. that are not only high quality but also safe to the consumers World wide.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND VALUES

When talking about the Engineering Professional Ethics it is important to stress that those are different than personal ethics. Since the foundations of professional ethics have roots inside personal ethics, it is hard to separate the two from one another, as our values ultimately drive our behaviors. No one person is identical to another, but they are some core values that could be traced to the common national culture, in fact determining how we respond to people and situations.

The most significant difference between personal and professional ethics has to do with the ethical standards of an organization or the engineering community. They are many professional engineering societies at present with the established code of ethics that has ever become more global as the engineering communities are becoming more global themselves.

Although the morality and ethics are two closely related concepts, they also differ in their fundamental definitions where morality is concerned with the conduct and motive, and right from wrong, while the ethics is the philosophical study of morality or in other words moral philosophy. Historically study of moral philosophy has been part of every liberal education curriculum that is no longer a practice due to overcrowded contemporary curriculums, and Ethicists are still not able to agree on a single unified definition of ethics.

The values could be divided into four general categories: individual, professional, societal, and human values that must be taken into account by each individual engineering professional what are the most important ones, and careful consideration of all of them is generally favored when making important engineering decisions. Political contributions that can lead toward “Political Engineering” where the decisions are not in the best public interest but rather geared toward interest of a small group of people in power are example of serious obstacle toward practicing the good ethical engineering.

Since the ancient time from the famous Greek philosophers it is well known fact that is literally impossible to study ethics as philosophical study of morality while not having the basic needs full field first, and less to practice it. That can be also observed from the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where physiological needs such as having food, shelter and water are on the very bottom, fallowed up by security and safety such as: job security and predictable work environment.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Environmental responsibilities are very important for the engineering professionals since they are in the position where the decisions they make can influence the present and future generation of people as well as animals and ecosystem in whole, and its ability to sustain life. As Herbert Hoover wrote about the engineering profession, it is the privilege of engineers to elevate the standards of living and add to the comforts of life. But with the benefits of technology also come potential pitfalls and drawbacks. Technology has consequences-and not all of those consequences are good. Some bad consequences are the result of negligent, reckless or deceitful behavior and others are unforeseen and unintended. To what extent are engineers responsible for the impact of their creations? If so, what kinds of impacts should be considered? Technology can have impacts on future generations, on people in other remote countries, on animals, plants, or ecosystems. It can have dramatic affects on life-style, jobs, and privacy. Are engineers obligated to consider what might happen if their products are used for sinister reasons? How should consideration of these kinds of impacts affect the way engineers design their products, if at all?

One approach to environmental ethics is to focus on how human decisions affect the earth's environment. Decisions about things like how to use resources or where resources are taken from have profound long-term and short-term effects on the environment. The processes by which these kinds of choices are made are very important; process effects outcome. Engineers play a central role in the decision-making process; they make or influence major decisions about the final product which, in turn, has environmental effects. Engineers must be taught to make those decisions well. As Stephen Unger writes, "there is flexibility on what directions technology can take and the choices among alternative paths are often significant."

Who or what has moral status (future persons, animals, trees)? When and under what conditions are we obligated to those who have moral status? These ideas lie at the basis of assessing the societal and environmental impacts of technology. Decisions about what direction technology takes have incredible social impacts. Job displacement and loss of privacy are two examples of societal consequences of technology.The extreme priority is teaching engineers about the profound societal affects of the technology they create and getting them to consider what processes could be built into their designs that will prevent problems or at least provide solutions to them should they arise.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST AND POSTEMPLOYMENT LIMITATONS

A number of situations where the personal interest may interfere with the best or optimal decision making by an engineering professional currently employed by a corporation. The fallowing three situations are the most obvious:

  • Gifts, where an engineer is in a position to make a decision to use a service, purchase a product from other company or their sales person. Sales people will often include free lunches, diners, and other gifts in order to build the necessary relationship. The problem is in detail or in other words how much of a gift is appropriate and over what limit is considered a conflict of interest? Many organizations establish an approximate monetary limit, while the others do not permit any gifts at all, depending on the company policy.
  • Moonlighting is the next situation where an engineer may or may not be permitted to compete for a project using his own time outside of normal working hours.
  • Inside information including but not limited to engineers only. Engineers and other executives having significant percentage of ownership in a small firm are limited to buy and sell large blocks of stuck that will affect stock purchases.

After the termination of employment or change for that matter the question is: what are reasonable time and other limitations to the contracts, how long the engineers will not be permitted to work for the competitors, what is if any minimum distance that engineer can look for an employment from the previous employer etc. It is reasonable to expect that an engineer will not be using trade secrets and other highly classified materials for outside employment consultation etc. with the exception of the common engineering principles and his/her own knowledge and experience.

WHISTLE BLOWING

In today’s extremely competitive business environment employers may chose to disregard the safety of the general public and environment, in order to achieve higher profit over its competitors. An example would be a construction company placing the lower bead for the construction of a building, and using less structural material than needed, and in process compromising public safety. In this situation an engineer who is the employee of that company may come in conflict with the loyalty to its employer. If the engineer make a choice to alert its employer (who knowingly “cut corners” of the project) the result is often ending in sanctions and lose of employment.

On the other hand the engineer can chose to “overlook” the problem and violate the engineering ethics code knowingly. The examples of whistle blowing are countless throughout varieties of industries, companies, services etc. Although most of the engineers attempt to achieve problem resolution trough their organizational chain of command, most if not all of them are punished outside of the organization after whistle blowing, so that it becomes obvious that their responsibility goes far beyond building of machines and systems. The critical technical decisions can not be left into the hands of administrative people or overloaded technical administrators to decide what is safe for the public. After the normal administrative channels are explored and failed to produce result, the obligation of engineers is to search for any available avenue in order to protect the safety and well being of the public.

In certain situations engineers, managers and other professionals may come across a conflictive position where corporate, professional and personal objectives and values are not aligned and action need to be taken. That is the time when engineers can rely on their own personal values, in order to protect the best public interest and safety, often undermining their own future within the company of their employment.

REFERENCES

  1. Lucy C. Morse, Daniel L. Babcock : Managing Engineering and Technology , Fourth Edition , Upper Saddle River, NJ07458

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