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Teaching Engineering Ethics: A Case Study Approach

edited by Michael Pritchard

From the Center For the Study of Ethics in Society, Western Michigan University. Thirty-two cases which address a wide range of ethical issues that can arise in engineering practice.

1. Using Company Resources: XYZ Corporation permits its employees to borrow company tools. Engineer Al House took full advantage of this privilege. He went one step further and ordered tools for his unit that would be useful for his home building projects even though they were of no significant use to his unit at XYZ.
2. Testing by a CO-OP Student: Jack Jacobs, an engineering co-op student from a State University, "fudges" the data, causing catastrophic failure.
3. Gifts from a Supplier: Scott Bennett is the engineer assigned to deal with vendors who supply needed parts to the Upscale Company. Larry Newman, sales representative from one of Upscale's regular vendors, offers Scott a chance at a good deal on a condo.
4. New Supervisor Policies: Chief engineer of Axtell's Installation Division, Howard Hanson implements a new policy which may be necessary. A situation arises for two engineers which makes them question how necessary the policy is.
5. Shortage of Components: Ruskin Manufacturing has guaranteed Parker Products that it will deliver the complete order of small machines by the 10th of the month, a Friday. Parker had already extended its deadline once. This time, it insists, the date must be met. Tim Vinson, head of quality control, had been confident the deadline would be met. But on the 8th he learns that a new component of the machines is in short supply.
6. Dissent about Nuclear Safety: Today Alison finds herself in a difficult situation. PNSRC is meeting to decide what to do about a heat exchanger problem. Alison is a single voice in a company meeting held to finalize an important decision. Should she speak up?
7. Drinking in the Workplace: Branch, Inc. has been losing ground to its competitors in recent years. Concerned that substance abuse may be responsible for much of Branch's decline, the company has just adopted a policy that imposes sanctions on those employees found to be working under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs.
8. Requested to Falsify Data: Stephanie Simon knew Environmental Manager Adam Baines would not be pleased with her report on the chemical spill. The data clearly indicated that the spill was large enough that regulations required it to be reported to the state. Adam Baines asks Stephanie to change her report.
9. Owning up to a Failure.: Norm Nash represented R&M's "official position": the piece of equipment is all right. However, during the course of the meeting it becomes apparent to Walt Winters that the problem has to be R&M's. Should Walt say anything about this in the presence of the customer, or should he wait until after the meeting to discuss this with Norm Nash?
10. Disposing of Toxic Waste.: Just moments ago, Bryan's supervisor, Max Morrison, told him to dump half of the used coolant down the drain. Bryan knew the coolant was toxic, and he mentioned this to Max. But Max was not swayed.
11. Hospitality from a Vendor: Paul Ledbetter decides to accept hospitality from a vendor in the form of a country club membership.
12. Occupational Health: Don Hayward is employed as a chemical engineer at ABC Manufacturing. Although he does not work with hot metals himself, he supervises workers who are exposed to hot metals eight hours a day, five days a week. Don becomes concerned when several workers develop respiratory problems and complain about "those bad smelling fumes from the hot metals". When Don asks his superior, Cal Brundage, about air quality in the workplace, the reply is that the workplace is in full compliance with OSHA guidelines.
13. Conflicts within a Manufacturing Firm: At T&D Manufacturing, the procedure to obtain needed tooling is to have the tools designed in house by company tool engineers. When the design is approved, part prints and specifications are mailed to at least three approved outside vendors. The outside shop supplying the best price and delivery date is usually awarded a contract to produce the tool. Now the branch of T&D responsible for repairing tools wants a chance at bidding on the tool requests.
14. What Job you can Accept: Gerald Wahr has moral objections to the only job available to him.
15. Dealing with a Costly Error: What to do when old friendship gets in the way of decision making.
16. Dissent about Quality: A new engineer fears voicing dissent at a meeting.
17. Informing Employees about Layoffs: Tony decides to wait until after Christmas to inform the workers that they will be laid off and must deal with some problems as one worker finds out before the holiday.
18. Company Interests and Employee Involvement in Community: Elizabeth Dorsey is an engineer at CDC, Inc. and is caught in a difficult situation when CDC plans are in opposition to a community group which she is a part of.
19. The Information Due to the Customer: XYZ orders 5000 custom made parts from ABC for one of its products. When the order is originally made ABC indicates it will charge $75 per part. This cost is based in part on the cost of materials. After the agreement is completed, but before production of the part begins, ABC engineer Christine Carsten determines that a much less expensive metal alloy can be used while only slightly compromising the integrity of the part. Using the less expensive alloy would cut ABC's costs by $18 a part.
20. Tokenism and Promotion: On the face of it, Darnell, Inc. has a strong commitment to affirmative action. Five years ago less than 1% of its professional and managerial staff were women. Now 8% are women. However, few of the women are in senior positions. Partly this is because most of the women have less seniority than the vast majority of men. But it is also because, until recently, there has been widespread skepticism at Darnell that women are well suited for the responsibilities that attach to the more senior positions. This may now be changing. Catherine Morris is one of the leading candidates for promotion to Chief Engineer in Quality Control at Darnell.
21. Who can change Proprietary Source Code: Derek Evans used to work for a small computer firm that specializes in developing software for management tasks. Derek was a primary contributor in designing an innovative software system for customer services. Derek is now working for a much larger computer firm. It now occurs to him that by making a few minor alterations in the innovative software system he helped design at the small computer firm his new tasks at this larger firm can be greatly simplified.
22. Taking a Position of Influence: You teach in the department of Engineering Technology at Western Tech. Although you are well known nationally for your research, your heavy teaching load has prevented you from undertaking a major project you have been interested in for some time. So, you begin working on a proposal. Later you find out that you are going to serve on the review panel for this program.
23. Boundary between Professional Engineering Society and State Licensing Board: The New Wyoming State Board of Professional Engineers performs regulatory functions (e.g., licensing of engineers) for the state. Members of the Board are appointed by the state governor. Most of the Board members are also members of the New Wyoming Society of Professional Engineers (NWSPE), a voluntary umbrella organization of professional engineers in New Wyoming. Membership in NWSPE is controlled by its own board and is not subject to approval by the State Board. Since they share many common concerns about the engineering profession, the Executive Committee of NWSPE has recently expressed a strong interest in improving communication between NWSPE and the State Board.
24. Conflict of Interest serving on a Government Committee: Residents in Barker Township strongly oppose the proposed site for the landfill. A very large number opposed the reappointment of Matthews and Parkinson. Now a petition demanding the recall of Matthews and Parkinson has been signed by several hundred township residents. They claim that both Matthews and Parkinson are involved in a conflict of interest.
25. Bringing in the first Woman: Jim Grimaldi, projects manager in the Sunnyvale division of Universal Corporation, has just learned that in two weeks the headquarters in Los Angeles will be sending him a project engineer, Joan Dreer. Her job will be to supervise small groups of engineers involved in automotive brake design. The Los Angeles headquarters is anxious to move women into all company levels, and it has targeted Grimaldi's engineering division at Sunnyvale as a good place for Joan Dreer.
26. Request from a former Student: Nelson Nice is on the engineering faculty at State University. Three years ago he headed a research project that involved an undergraduate student assistant. At first Jason Smart was enthusiastic about the project. However, as time passed Jason grew impatient with the laboratory work and write-ups. Nelson Nice found that he had to do more and more of the work himself. Eventually Jason left the project before the work was completed. One year later Jason, then a graduate student at another university, wrote to Nelson Nice and asked him if he would send him a copy of the final report of the work they had done together.
27. Exceeding Pollution Limits: Marvin has just prepared a report that indicates that the level of pollution in the plant's water discharges slightly exceeds the legal limitations. However, there is little reason to believe that this excessive amount poses any danger to people in the area; at worst, it will endanger a small number of fish. On the other hand, solving the problem will cost the plant more than $200,000.
28. Cutting Roadside Trees: For each of the past 7 years at least one person has suffered a fatal automobile accident by crashing into trees closely aligned along a 3 mile stretch of Forest Drive. Many other accidents have also occurred, causing serious injuries, wrecked cars, and damaged trees. Some of the trees are quite close to the pavement. Two law suits have been filed against the road commission for not maintaining sufficient road safety along this 3 three mile stretch. Both were dismissed because the drivers were going well in excess of the 45 mph speed limit.
29. US Parts: John Budinski, quality control engineer at Clarke Engineering, has a problem. Clarke contracted with USAWAY to supply a product subject to the requirement that all parts are made in the United States. Although the original design clearly specifies that all parts must satisfy this requirement, one of Clarke's suppliers failed to note that one of the components has two special bolts that are made only in another country. There is not time to design a new bolt if the terms of the contract are to be met. USAWAY is a major customer, and not meeting the deadline can be expected to have unfortunate consequences for Clarke.
30. Question of Delegating Responsibilities: Dan Dorset had been looking forward to this trip for weeks. Once he was assigned to help Rancott install its equipment for Boulding, Inc., he arranged his vacation at a nearby ski resort. The installation would be completed on the 12th, and his vacation would begin on the 13th. Unfortunately, not all of Rancott's equipment arrived on time.
31. Leaking Waste Containers: ABC's chemical waste is stored in a warehouse at an off-site location. While inspecting the warehouse, engineer Scott Lewis notices several leaking drums.
32. Cost of Design Improvement: WPI begins production and ships the first portion of the order to GFI on time. GFI, at this point, is very happy with the component and wants WPI to ship the final three quarters of the order as soon as feasible. As Philip is working on the component he thinks of an apparent solution to the 'nagging problem' that bothered him in the design. It would involve a small change in the production process, while increasing the cost to three dollars more per component. Philip is convinced that, had they known about this improvement earlier, GFI would have wanted it.