Ase Code Of Ethics Essay

By having knowledge of the chromium in the water supply, PG&E should have been required to let the people know that were affected by it. By not telling the citizens, they were withholding information that affected these people’s lives. Because a risk was created, consequences came, and nothing was done to prevent such injuries that did occur, PG&E should have been considered negligent.

Often, engineering ethics differ in personal judgments and can lead to many conflicts with ideas, designs, or preparations. One reason of engineering ethics resulting in conflicts is the disagreements with the facts of the case or not agreeing on every aspect of the case. When working with others, many differ with how certain results arise when constructing new technology or are not satisfied with the end production. This leads to major errors and miscalculations that could jeopardize a person or company’s reputation. This article is meant to explain cases of engineering ethics resulting in conflicts expressed through examinations, diagrams, and analysis of errors involved.

First, the “un-engineered” dam violated two laws; second, Pittston knew the dam was not safe; third, Pittston did not have a warning system in place to alert residents in case of disaster; fourth, by convincing the deputies to discontinue their warning efforts, Pittston negated the last-ditch effort that could have saved 125 people (Nugent 183). The most tragic finding from the multiple investigations and studies is that Pittston could have built a safe dam for less than 200,000 thousand dollars, an amount that was a mere “one-half of one percent of its 1971 profits” (Nugent 184), a small sacrifice that could have saved many lives. Pittston’s culpability lies in its reckless greed. One of saddest reminders of the horror of Pittston’s wanton disregard is a tombstone that reads: “This Tiny Trio / Boy-Girl-Boy / Who were the Victims of the Feb. 26, 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster are unknown to us by name but to Our Heavenly Father they are known as three little angels” (Stern 47). The article Remembering Buffalo Creek, 40 Years Later commemorates the tragedy saying: “We have a responsibility to teach each future generation what happened and why, so that they cannot only reverently remember but make certain that history does not repeat itself” (1). One can hope all companies have this etched in their minds and hearts and souls when they think of sacrificing safety for a

Many companies have ethical decisions that need to be and sometimes those decisions can affect many individuals or just a few. Making ethical decisions may be placed solely on one person’s shoulders or it may be a decision that multiple individuals must be involved in. There are several ethical issues in the Richardson Drilling case that should be considered. For instance, bribery, purchasing substandard parts with lack of disclosure that causes injuries, and revealing sensitive information. One potential ethical concern that could arise has to do with ongoing health insurance and the employer’s responsibility.

Recently it was discovered that some severe ethical violations occurred within our consulting team contracted to Pearson Waters, Inc. which required prompt action. Certain programming code supposedly written by one of our team members was actually proprietary software information belonging to another company. Additionally two images that were used to construct the Employee Instruction Booklet were randomly selected from an internet search, without any regard to ownership permission. These and other ethical violations will not be tolerated on this or any other contract.

After the collapse of the dam, many independent investigators were hired to inspect the dam site for damages. They discovered that the dam was not constructed accordingly to the design specifications. According to reports they noticed that the dam width did not exceed 140 feet as it was specified in the design. This suggests that the bottom portion of the dam may not have been adjusted to be proportional to the height. During the initial stages of construction, cracks appeared on dam, however Mulholland did not seem to be concerned. When the dam was completed, Mulholland inspected the dam by himself without any support. Even prior to the collapse of the dam, Mulholland was notified of cracks along the dam in which he concluded to be safe. As a result, the dam collapsed and took the lives of hundreds to his poor judgement. Furthermore, deputy district attorneys discovered that there were changes made on the dam by Mulholland and individuals who worked on the project. Unfortunately, these changes were not properly documented, which the district attorney’s found it difficult to understand and complete the construction process. Civil Engineers must strive to be transparent in the design and execution of a project, but Mulholland failed to do so as a chief engineer. District attorneys could not obtain documents that they requested because Mulholland failed to record enough details about the construction process, which shows Mulhollands lack of leadership as an

Some Ford engineers knew the Pinto cars didn’t have safe gas tanks, however De George believes they’re morally permitted to make views, not morally obliged to make them. Engineers are meant to speak on issues but not required the last word. In order to go public with the issue, they must receive no action for their concerns to internal superiors and provide evidence of the issue, including why it would

Specific violation would be the “Responsible Corporate Officer Doctrine. Hanousek will be held responsible (as he was responsible for every detail of the “6-mile” quarry project) for the criminally negligent act by puncturing the pipeline by the backhoe operator. He failed to ensure that no negligent act was done under his supervision; the doctrine will held him directly

The ASME created standards and codes for pressure vessels as well as initiating a precedent for analyzing engineering failures as to help prevent future disasters. Before, even when incidents were sometimes catastrophic, pressure vessels were simply deemed a dangerous line of work. The ASME, along with societies of other engineering disciplines, created a system to diagnose sources of error, which provided a basis from which engineers could innovate solutions. At its core, the method is just a few simple steps: contain the disaster, analyze the failure source, and determine who or what was at fault. With formal societies and rules in place, engineers were more accountable than ever for their projects. However the system for accountability was still incomplete. By 1919, engineering disasters were still catastrophic as a result of questionable practices and judgment. It was around this time that engineering licensure was developed as well as the adaptation of engineering ethics into the analysis of engineering catastrophes. Engineering ethics provided additional insight into why engineers make critical decisions as well as provide a platform for judging these engineers when things go wrong. Now the analysis gained an additional step: was the decision or action that led to failure made ethically or was it morally

The dam should have not been built under these circumstances. The highly cracked nature of the surrounding canyon walls presented challenges that the Bureau of Reclamation had not encountered before. Investigations revealed that the company did not visualize many combinations of unfavorable circumstances that were inherent in the situation. As a result, adequate defenses were not included in the design. Since the Bureau of Reclamation did not have enough information on how to deal with the situation, the dam should have not been built.

This is the first issue that proves to be unethical. The company lies to the residents in the area about contamination by hexavalent chromium. This is unethical because the company had the specific intention of lying to the residents in order to keep their company running. The company knew that it would suffer if the truth came out about the contamination. Since they lied about the hexavalent chromium, most of the residents suffered from illness due to contaminated water. The company then was involved in another unethical act as they offered to provide initial medical exams, so that they could easily hide the truth that the illnesses came from the contamination. As a result from the many health issues residents received, a great deal of money was spent on doctors visits and care. As the company tried to hide the contamination issues, they ultimately caused the sickness of the surrounding individuals. Pacific Gas &Electric Company is responsible for lying and deceiving, as well as knowingly letting residents suffer from illness. They intentionally risked the well being of the community that surrounds the corporation, so that their business could still

Mr. Elliott is not a strong witness. He is unfamiliar with OSHA regulations, including OSHA regulations requiring consultation with a registered professional engineer when the excavation exceeded 20 feet. He is not familiar with tabulated data Mr. Elliott also admitted that he did not ask anyone from NTS to be there for the removal or ask for an instruction manual. He also didn’t get a trench safety plan, admitted to not complying with the requirements of the contract with the city of Bryan, and did not conduct an investigation after the incident. He did not know what ANSI was. He never reviewed the excavation policy. He does not know what NIOSH is.

The article “Ethical Responsibilities of Engineers in Large Organizations: The Pinto Case” by Richard T. De George was an intriguing one to read. It all started on August 1978 when three girls died of burns that were caused when their 1973 Pinto was hit by a van and as a result was rammed violently onto traffic. Ford, who produces Pintos, was charged with three counts of reckless homicide by the State prosecutor. The jury came up with the verdict of not guilty. After the trial, it was discovered that Ford needed an additional part that costed $6.65 and this part would make the vehicle safer. Ford was presented with this information from the engineers but made an administrative decision

This is especially true since there is no concrete evidence proving that the two have a conflict of interest. ASCE code of ethics Canon 4 part d states the engineers should avoid conflicts of interest and that engineers acting ad public service members “shall not participate in considerations or actions with respect to services solicited or provided by them or their organization in private or public engineering practice”, so as long as he did not participate in proposing, building, or voting for the landfill he shouldn’t be in total violation of the Code of Ethics (“Code of Ethics.”). Due to the lack of information, it is difficult to determine the truth in the situation. Since the town believes there is a lack of interest, a change needs to be made, but due to state guidelines it may be a strenuous process to change the committee members. Hopefully Matthews and Parkinson will retire and the issue can

More specifically, they were trying to avoid the blame and further their individual motives. When I saw the film I thought to myself there’s no possible way this happens in real life, but the article shows two examples. The Challenger case as well as the Macondo Well blowout showed that even though engineers might have noticed a problem, in the end management or other engineers decided that it was safe enough to proceed. Then during the investigation, the leaders of the company or project managers decided to play innocent and ignorant. The other thing that I found interesting is the “practice defines facts” model. If correlations are found, then they become facts until they are disproven; this is the problem with the model. A fact should not be able to change, if a fact is truly a fact then the evidence should always support it. When we spread misinformation by stating a correlation is fact, it can lead to many people thinking that it is the truth. It goes back to the first articles we read in class about misleading information in science. Not only does the Macondo/Challenger article tie into the film that we watch it also ties into other topics that we learned about ethics. People in certain situations have an innate self-interest that hurts