Most common ethical issues an engineer faces are that providing a quality product at a reasonable cost and safety of the public. At time, clients want more than they are willing to pay for, in this case engineer must decide whether to shorten the design to save money and time or not to take the job they offered. The ethical engineer modules or designs are not only for the safety and low manufacture cost, but also for reduce manufacture cost for the entire design. The professional engineer’s duty is to find the correct manufacture cost and whether the product will be safe to use. Often times, an engineer may experience a situations in which they can’t get the client or manager satisfied of the product. In order to maintain an ethical demeanor in such cases, an engineer may have to refuse to approve the project design. Another ethical issue would be understanding and conflict of interest. Engineers should not sign an agreement to work on former employers or not to sign contract while other engineer still working on the same project. Engineers should not work on a product that will com...
The National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics lays out guidelines and standards to which all engineers should abide when making professional decisions and communicating with their peers and the public. Ethics and communications played a large role in the cause of the event and the end result of the mission. The following section will discuss the ethics of the events that transpired prior to the launch, the communication of the crews and the NASA public relations office, and the ethics of the actions taken by the engineers after the incident.
Martin, M.W. and Schinzinger, R. (2005) Ethics in Engineering. 4th ed. New York: McGraw Hill.
The aerospace industry is fairly new in our day in age. It has been recorded in history that the first flight ever by man took place in Kitty Hawk, NC roughly 100 years ago. Since that first model, drastic improvements have been made in aerospace technology. Aerospace has evolved from simple prop planes to sound barrier breaking jets and even to space shuttles. The very definition of aerospace in the adjective or active form is “of or relating to aerospace, to vehicles used in aerospace or the manufacture of such vehicles, or to travel in aerospace.” In general, aerospace deals with any dynamic manufactured vehicle that travels above the surface of the earth. This, as you might expect, leaves two possibilities, the atmosphere or our earth, and outer space. Such basic examples of aerospace vehicles are Cessna planes, Black Hawk helicopters, Goodyear blimps and the Columbia Space Shuttle. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, aerospace has and will continue to be an integrated part of our society.
The tragic failure of the Challenger does make for an excellent case study on managment process. Prior to reviewing the course material, I was aware there was a technical and mechanical failure which led to the demise of the spacecraft as well as the crew, but I had no idea that the device which failed was a known problem to the engineers, and known by at least some level of management. It is shocking. Although I was unable to obtain the PDF for Engineering Ethics Case Study: The Challenger Disaster, I found the content of The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: A Study in Organizational Ethics particularly interesting of case studies provided.
Ethical issue faced after the project is completed: After the project is completed following ethical issues may be faced by Project Manager.
William LeMessurier, one of the nation's most distinguished structural engineers, served as design and construction consultant on the innovative Citicorp Tower, which was completed in 1977 in New York. The next year, after a college student studying the Tower design for her thesis had called him to point out a possible deficiency, LeMessurier discovered that the building was indeed structurally deficient. The deficient came from substitution of welded joints to bolted joints. LeMessuerier went through calculation and found out that bolts joints were insufficient to withstand strong quartering winds. LeMessurier’s calculations revealed that 70 mph quartering winds would topple the building. According to the New York City weather records, the likelihood of a storm with 70 mph winds was one in every sixteen years. By taking the tuned mass damper into account, LeMessurier calculated that the probability of failure could be reduced to one in fifty-five years, but that assumed that the power to the building, which was needed to keep the tuned mass damper working, was maintained without dis...
Everyone in this world has experienced an ethical dilemma in different situations and this may arise between one or more individuals. Ethical dilemma is a situation where people have to make complex decisions and are influenced based on personal interest, social environment or norms, and religious beliefs (“Strategic Leadership”, n.d.). The leaders and managers in the company should set guidelines to ensure employees are aware and have a better chance to solve and make ethical decisions. Employees are also responsible in understanding their ethical obligations in order to maintain a positive work environment. The purpose of this case study is to identify the dilemma and analyze different decisions to find ways on how a person should act
Engineers and computer scientist live by a code of ethics in which they are required to uphold. In almost every code of ethics it is stated that each engineer/computer scientist must uphold the safety, health & welfare of the public which is paramount. So, if we consider the Respect for Persons theory. There is without a doubt an ethical responsibility for engineers/computer scientist that must be addressed over the disparity that exposes environmental toxicants distributed un-equally among the population.
Bioengineering focuses on the engineering of biological processes and systems in general which leads to a variety of both societal and ethical issues, bioengineering not only includes biomedical engineering but also agricultural engineering, food engineering and biotechnology as a whole which are all fields that are prone to a brighter ethics spotlight. This is due in part because biomedical engineering it itself a new field and there is currently no academic field that covers biomedical engineering ethics.
The Engineering Handbook, Chapter Six: Ethics, Santa Clara University School of Engineering, 27 Feb. 2004, http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/NQuinn/ENGR019_301Winter2004/EngrHandbook_Ethics.pdf.
People intuitively have the desire to make things go their way even when they are being put through very difficult situation that require doing something or believing in something that could be out of their hands. They tend to overly hold favorable views of their abilities in such ways that support their views to the extent of self-deception. They allow themselves to believe that a false feeling, idea, or situation is true just so they can achieve a certain goal that they have in mind. This paper aims to define self-deception and how it differs from lying in addition to finding the relationship between self-deception and ethics through real life examples.
Ethics is the moral behavior that guides our actions; it motivates us in our personal behavior and is relevant in a business setting as well. Many organizations have set forth a set of guidelines known as a “Code of Ethics”. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, being one of these organizations, has set forth their code as a requirement for students and engineer members to adhere to. Heading towards a career in electrical engineering I choose this organization to elaborate on for my ethics project.
McLaren, B. (2010, July 22). The ethical responsibility of engineers and the rest of us, too [Web log article]. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-d-mclaren/the-ethical-responsibilit_b_653812.html
For better illustration, some engineers whom ignore ethic codes and mistakenly causing unwanted disasters and tragedies happen due to incomplete engineering design and lacking in maintenance. Engineering who less likely to consider ethic code as their responsibility, he or she will lose the sense of humanity and responsibility to public. In this case, an engineer should not sign, coincide or hide any project or plan that are not in conformity with applicable standards of engineering. The document that does not full fill the requirement and safety that signed by engineer will bring great impact as this will have chance to make accidents happens. Therefore, this is an important issue and a basic thing that must exhibit by every engineer so that an engineer strive to serve the public interest at all the times. Besides that, engineers are encouraged to entrench to the environment sustainability, social sustainability and development sustainability in order to protect the greening of the earth for future young generation. Engineer should have ethic when doing the survey and research for a project before approval the document especially
Engineering ethics can be described as moral principles that are applied to the engineering practice (Van et al, 2011). Engineering bodies, such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, conducts field examines and set obligations that engineers are supposed to fulfill, to their clients, society and professi...