Engineering Codes of Ethics

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Introduction

Ethics entails the values and beliefs that an organization holds in its objectives, rules, and practices. Ethics defines an organizations culture. The quality of production in an organization lies in the richness of its culture. Regardless of the significance that one has in an organization, a positive culture flourishes and bolsters the standards of an organization. According to Perlman and Varma (2002), almost half of the American workers report witnessing illegal behavior in their organizations, and most of these malpractices are not addressed. In the engineering field, the cost of unethical behavior is unfathomable. As a science, engineering entails human life at all levels, from production to consumption. A building is erected, automobiles operate, space exploration goes on, and people are expected to trust the engineers behind these innovations for their safety.

People do not worry about how a plane or ship can withstand lots of weight without collapsing. All the trust is vested in the works of the engineers. To many people, engineers works function perfectly until the day a mishap happens, and lives are lost. For instance, in Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans Levee System failure, the US engineers identified that the levees failed due to architectural loopholes, poor quality, and design. Based on this example, the question of ethical considerations arises. This paper analyzes the importance of engineering codes of ethics. In addition, the paper analyzes how evaluating the purpose of ethics in real cases of engineering breakdowns, for instance, the levee failure assists, depicts the challenges that arise when effecting codes of ethics.

Literature review

Positive ethical workplace culture results in quality performance. Studies have found that an organizations shared culture is the key predictor of how much value a firm will work hard to keep in its reputation. Work ethics answers an array of questions across many fields. What kind of culture should firms cultivate? What rules should workers uphold? What are the challenges to sustaining these rules? A study conducted by Perlman and Varma (2002) suggests that the engineering code of ethics for professional engineers is too vague to offer much-needed guidance for practice. Although the codes of ethics have become inherent in the concept of professional practice, the continued engineering failures signify the shortcomings of these codes of ethics. Despite the ethical difficulties in engineering, as a science, it cannot stop evolving. The innovation of new technology extends the boundaries of what seems possible, and thus disasters are bound to happen. In the struggle to achieve their usefulness and gain trust from society, engineers have come up with various codes of ethics, which will be discussed throughout this paper.

The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster of March 6, 1987, led to the death of 150 passengers in addition to 38 crew officials. The passenger and freight ferry failed outside the Zeebrugge harbor. Van de Poel and Van Gorp (2006) relate this disaster to ethical issues of accountability, safety, and integrity since the inner and outer bow doors remained open as the ferry departed. The official responsible for closing the doors had fallen asleep.

In addition, the design of the ship did not put into consideration the need for warning lights to alert the other crewmembers when the bow doors are open. Similar cases had hit the same company on two previous occasions, but this issue was not taken with the weight it deserved. As shown by Van de Poel and Van Gorp (2006), the rush to depart quickly and ignorance in communication led to them leaving the harbor with the bow doors open. Van de Poel and Van Gorp (2006) further suggest that in spite of human error to leave the doors open, the disaster was compounded by the design of the ferry. However, topics of critical importance that will be discussed include safety, integrity, accountability, excellence, and citizenship.

Safety

According to Hyldgaard (2012), engineers, as professional practitioners, have the mandate not only to the client or employer but also to the public interest. Concerning human safety, engineers should adhere to professional codes of ethics; for instance, engineers shall maintain the safety and welfare of the public. Engineering conducts with respect to safety must focus beyond the individual engineer or an organization. In cases where human safety is compromised, especially in issues regarding engineering design, individual engineers should take moral responsibility and blow the whistle for public benefit.

Following the Herald disaster and the two previous cases, the engineers had the knowledge that the design of the ferry was vulnerable to instability if water were to flow into the decks. However, no individual engineer took the responsibility to blow the whistle about the impending danger. This example shows the possible ethical influence associated with decisions made by engineers in the design process. The design safety of the Herald of Free Enterprise raises key ethical questions on whether the ferry should have assumed a safer model holding to the fact that the engineers had known of the possibility of such disaster. This aspect is a moral challenge since people suffer and die when a ferry capsizes.

On designing the legal safety measures, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME International) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have a critical role to play (Van de Poel & Van Gorp, 2006). Engineers both at individual and group levels should adhere to the regulations made by these bodies. The code of conduct should not be taken as mere moral guides, but as legalistic rules and they should not trade safety measures for cost considerations. Relatively, engineers moral responsibility should be illuminated in the designing of stable ships. Engineers should anticipate any possible human error during the decision-making of the design process. If possible, all human errors should be minimized if not alleviated. Individual engineers should take responsibility and blow the whistle if they feel that economic pressures compromise safety.

Integrity

There has been an inherent drift in focus on the engineering professional ethics literature from social malpractice to integrity. Based on this assertion, integrity entails holding distinguished moral qualities and taking superior roles in a high capacity. Integrity is not all about avoiding misdeeds but acquiring everyday morality. In a bid to understand the issue of integrity from an engineering perspective, it is necessary to view engineers as humanists. Not only as technologists, but also as individuals reckoning social challenges, dynamics of the world markets, and the roles that they are trusted within the workplace.

Establishing how to influence professional integrity among engineers is a challenging task coupled with how integrity links to the provision of efficient services to the public. Largely, the effectiveness of the results is partially grounded in the situations that engineers find themselves in whilst executing their duties. For instance, professional obligations transcribed in the code of ethics for engineers might be too compelling or too loose to alter the decision of the engineer, and this situation can easily produce undesired results. Integrity involves keeping to the standards and considering what is at stake for all parties affected by the decision. In addition, it requires responsible engineers to prioritize moral standards over appeals to norms, laws, and loyalty to the client. Although such matters substantially form part of the engineers decision, appeals to moral standards form a direct link to the ethics of integrity.

On August 29, 2005, New Orleans was hit by a hurricane, which damaged the levee system. Hurricane Katrina claimed approximately 1,800 lives. The damage could not have been this huge if the levees had contained the pressure to avoid flooding, which emerged due to the preceding burst of the levee system. Post analysis engineers identified that the levees broke down because the engineering design adopted a disjointed fashion and poor quality. In addition, the use of outdated data meant that arising factors were not factored in during the designing phase. Economic pressures compelled the initial planning not to factor in the poor soil quality in New Orleans. This example raises the ethical question of integrity.

The engineers involved in the preliminary set of the levee system failed to tell the truth about what they felt about the quality of the design and materials. On matters concerning human safety, saying that one was not aware of anything is not a mere excuse, which borders on negligence. Integrity should be fostered at all levels right from the decision-making process to consumption or application. If integrity is compromised for loyalty appeals or cost factors, then ethical challenges develop since human life is endangered (Van de Poel & Van Gorp, 2006).

Accountability

Due to international competitiveness, the development and observation of codes of ethics are inevitable aspects of the search for universalism. Since all endeavors in engineering present potential risks, engineering is a risky activity. It involves activities conducted on a social scale, thus affecting humans directly. Based on this argument, accountability entails the processes by which those who are in positions of influence have an obligation to exercise their power and ensure that those under them pursue their duties effectively. Ethical workplace cultures emphasize self-driven values such as accountability to sustain moral appeals.

Although the codes of ethics for professional engineers have been developed, the inspiration for such rules is the people of the mainstream society who voluntarily observe them. A load of accountability lies in the moral obligation to respond consciously in favor of the public and provide answers to all issues based on professionalism and experience. In general, accountability in engineering involves acting in a responsible manner and being in a position to bear the consequences of failure or success.

Referring to the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, Van de Poel and Van Gorp (2006) have shown that several engineering flaws coming from human error led to the failure of the ferry. However, given that similar accidents had occurred earlier, it means that ethical questions on transparency were not addressed. The design and project engineers failed to take responsibility for previous failures. The safety document for the ferry design was poor, which means that the design engineer failed to facilitate information exchange amongst all stakeholders. Additionally, in a bid to remain competitive in the shipyards or any other business, the price has to be as low as possible or fair.

As a result, many engineers might decide to delegate duties to other workers in a bid to avoid being answerable in case an eventuality happens. Accountability to safety measures is only accounted for in the presence of legal obligations. Engineers may not be held responsible if, at the time of production, the products complied with the set standards (Bowen, 2009).

Excellence

The ethical challenges facing the 21^st-century community offer complex conditions for engineers to solve. Since engineering applies in many ways to human subjects, health, safety, and welfare should be accounted for in any executed duty. This aspect highlights the importance of engineers ethical conduct as professionals. Work excellence in engineering entails performing duties extraordinarily. Creating a culture of excellence is not only necessary but also a compulsory undertaking. This goal can be facilitated through formal critique sessions during work and continued evaluation. Engineers must embrace teamwork, be helpful, and specific.

Engineers have to work hard in a bid to ensure that they prevent failure of the structures that they build. In a bid to ensure continued excellence and problem-solving skills, engineers should often attend learning programs to update their skills to match the changing technology (Bowen, 2009). Learning new skills helps to upgrade productivity and sustainability. Excellent engineers present brilliant products, and they lead to high productivity coupled with building the reputation of a firm. In contemporary society, people expect excellence from engineers upon which they can develop the trust of their products. Engineers should act with care and accuracy, be objective, and respect the aspirations and needs of others.

Citizenship

Citizenship entails the understanding of human cultural values and putting them into consideration when designing technology and other engineering products in the global realm. Citizenship is a form of self-regulation or corporate conscience aimed at meeting all standards of production and expectations of society. Engineers should remain conscious of design through production, consumption, and disposal of devices.

Citizenship involves both rights and obligations of workers (Robinson, Dixon, Preece & Moodley, 2012). In organizations that embrace positive working culture, communication and decision-making entails inclusion, team support, and respect for all. Professional engineers demonstrate this citizenship through acting responsibly towards humanism and environmental protection. The rule of doing the right thing when nobody is examining applies to citizenship. The work of a professional engineer is to respond to a problem whilst ensuring that his/her actions do not create more problems, but satisfaction. Engineers should ensure that they minimize all forms of risk or failure that may arise regarding their creations. Devices should be designed to ensure that they are harmless upon their disposal, thus not polluting the environment (Hyldgaard, 2012).

Challenges

While conducting this study, a number of challenges emerged. Although there has been substantial progress in compiling literature on engineering ethics, much is yet to be accomplished. Debates on engineering ethics are not widespread, and thus it was a challenge to access the relevant literature and building on the existing knowledge. In avoiding this challenge, this study focused on previous high profile cases concerning engineering ethics. By examining various cases of engineering failures such as the Hurricane Katrina, this study generated informed accounts on ethical issues surrounding this field. In addition, this paper used historical events and examined their outcomes while interpreting various ethical issues.

Lessons learned and recommendations

Significant changes have been made so far in developing work ethics for engineers and even introducing them in the engineering curriculum. Professional responsibility has been identified as the key intervention to engineering failures. Another observation made when evaluating engineers competence implied that most engineers do not know how to apply the regulative framework. Most engineers have technical competences, but they lack social skills, which are needed to help in keeping the limits of the applicability of an ethical framework. Most ethical issues facing engineers often arise due to the context they practice in during their tenure. This aspect means that individual engineers cannot eliminate some ethical challenges. However, engineers have the obligation to work closely together in a bid to eliminate all doubts.

Further research on work ethics within the engineering industry is needed. This research should be conducted at all levels from education to professional practice. A sufficient regulative framework and a well-articulated code of ethics are needed for modern engineers. Attention should be focused on engineering education to the ethical frameworks and moral responsibilities of professional engineers. In addition, communication among workers should be enhanced to avoid the misinterpretation of designs. Making unnecessary additions and omissions is a possible scenario when engineers engaged in teamwork fail to communicate effectively.

Due to the ever-rising cases of engineering errors, it becomes necessary to improve the learning system to capture recent high profile cases of engineering failures. This aspect may be helpful for attracting the attention of professional engineers and students. All engineering programs for new students and professionals should incorporate courses in engineering ethics so that safety, excellence, integrity, citizenship, and accountability can be viewed as necessary attributes of effective engineering practice (Perlman & Varma, 2002).

Competences demonstrated in this paper

This paper has rich analysis of high profile cases demonstrating instances of ethical challenges in the engineering industry. This paper delves into the history to give the actual outcome and possible intervention for similar cases. This study bridges the gap between theory and practice. It uses a consistent analysis and organization. This paper helps readers to understand the importance of engineering code of conduct coupled with how their decisions can affect the health, safety, and welfare of humanity. This paper is a crucial addition to engineering literature. This paper shows how engineers should apply engineering ethics to proper judgment and response to cases while performing their work. Giving concise interpretation and proper references raises the credibility of this paper. Generally, this paper demonstrates the role played by ethics issues in the work place coupled with what engineers should avoid.

Conclusion

This paper has shown that human factors are the main causes of an engineering failure. Deficiency in engineering ethics is a major cause of such failures, but it is the responsibility of professional engineers to play their roles consciously. A responsible engineer should be self-motivated to act beyond the bounds of the law for the well-being of the public. An ethical engineer knows how to evade conflict of interests in the work place, s/he does not take roles that are beyond their expertise, and s/he takes into account the welfare of society. In addition, apart from abiding by the terms of agreements, ethical engineers avoid manipulation by their clients.

References

Bowen, W. (2009). Engineering ethics: Outline of an aspirational approach. London, UK: Springer. Web.

Hyldgaard, C. (2012). Engineering, development and philosophy: American, Chinese and European perspectives. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Web.

Perlman, B., & Varma, R. (2002). Improving ethical engineering practice. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 21(1), 40-48. Web.

Robinson, S., Dixon, R., Preece, C., & Moodley, K. (2012). Engineering, Business & amp; Professional Ethics. Hoboken: Taylor & amp; Francis. Web.

Van de Poel, R., & Van Gorp, A. (2006). The need for ethical reflection in engineering design: the relevance of type of design and design hierarchy. Science Technology & Human Values, 31(3), 333-360. Web.

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