Citicorp Tower Controversy Summary

Assume you are an M-Global field engineer working at the construction site of a nuclear power plant in Jentsen, Missouri. For the past three weeks, your job has been to observe the construction of a water-cooling tower, a large cylindrical structure. As consultants to the plant’s construction firm, you and your M-Global crew were hired to make sure that work proceeds properly and on schedule. As the field engineer, you are supposed to report any problems in writing to your project manager, John Raines, back at your St. Louis office. Then he will contact the construction firm’s office, if necessary.

The first fundamental canon of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics states that engineers “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.” The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) takes it a step further by amending the NSPE canon and adding that chemical engineers “protect the environment in performance of their professional duties.” These ethical standards were placed in order to prevent contaminations to maintain a healthy work environment, and prevent the general public and environment from being harmed. The “Aberdeen Three” case is an instance of three knowledgeable and high ranking engineers, as well as the United States army, disregarding the safety of the public or their

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

Apply the ethical decision making model presented in week one lectures (adapted from Beemsterboer, 2010; Velasquez et al, 2009) to the case study.

I personally think he did the right thing by owning up to his mistake and not continuing to lie even after he was caught. I think when he got caught he looked at it from an ethical aspect in the fact that other work their hardest in college to even get a position like that with no degree. He knew he was in the wrong but he definitely established himself in a respectable

His business of making safety vests lacked safety standards and he did all the unethical business practice selfishly.

(2) The plaintiff alleges that Great Wall Construction Specialists Ltd. was negligent in their maintenance of the lookout towers where he fell through the floorboards and thus, is liable to him for the injuries he sustained as a result of his accident.

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

Although many things about engineering are positive there is a dark side. We depend on them and while engineers are making innovations for us, and maintaining life as the way we know it they also struggle with ethical issues such as plagiarism, confidentiality, and whistleblowing. Just like the list of golden rules we learned as young children, engineers uphold a list of ethical rules to guide them to make the ethically correct decision when one of these situations arise. Bribery the act of receiving or giving a gift with something required in return is another example of an ethical issue that can entice engineers to break the code (“Gifts and Bribes”, 2006). Unfortunately this was the case for a former manager of the Army Corps of Engineers whose greed caused him to break the ethical canons to “avoid deceptive acts”, to “conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, and lawfully as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession”, and finally to “hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public” (“Code of Ethics”). His misconduct is an example of the unethical decisions some engineers make.

This situation happened three weeks before collapse and it continue without experience workers considering concern of the load not properly distributed. The project engineer should have been in charge with the stockpiling of materials on the bridge because construction inspector was in charge that materials met standards. A safety engineer noted that the gusset plate was bowing during his inspection and consulted another engineer on the problem. The other engineer said the connection did not show deterioration or signs of deterioration and other design problems was not their job, so the bowing was not noted in the inspection report. The safety engineer was knowledgeable to know that the bowing was a problem in the structure of the bridge but taking the suggestion from the other engineer suggest that safety engineer duty did not align with their will that bowing was the problem but it was not their job to suggest

“I would rather be a good man than a great king” said the character Thor in Thor: The Dark World. In these words we find a frightening tension. Almost everyone agrees that it is good to be ethical; this is an easy affirmation. It is much more difficult, though, when ethics is in direct opposition to success. This dichotomy- between ethics and success- will no doubt confront an engineer during a professional career of any substantial length. Can you say that you would rather be a good man than rich? Or popular? Or a successful engineer? What should happen when an engineer faces this question? One real world example that can shed some light on this problem is what is known as bid shopping. This essay will provide a thorough definition of the problem of bid shopping and the ethical dilemma surrounding it. It will then apply the ethical theories of Duty Ethics and Virtue Ethics to the question. And seek to show that bid shopping is unethical according to both ethical theories.

According to Luth (2000) there were many opportunities throughout the construction and design phase for the design flaw to be recognized by the engineers and there should have been a better review system in place as the changes that were made were not properly reviewed by a structural engineer. This disaster could have been avoided if someone would have taken the time to make sure all the designs were safe and would work

The series of ethical issues that took place leading to the disaster are complex, and other factors such as economic and political issues arose after the catastrophe happened. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ethical issues that took place before the disaster happened, and investigate the moral obligations, social responsibility and justice at an individual and organizational level. The ethical dilemma is broken down into three categories, which include the company’s management priority to reduce costs and time, neglecting safety issues addressed by staff, human misjudgment and errors in neglecting pressure reading; and finally, overlooking the technical design flaws that were not tested by BP before installing to use. The

“And Hansel said to Gretel; let us drop these bread crumbs so that together we can find our way home, because losing our way would be the cruellest of things” (The Tide That Left and Never Came Back: One Tree Hill 2005). The construction industry lost its way, over the years the industry has faced many accusations for undertaking in unlawful practices and performing unethical behaviour. This is detrimental to our nation as a whole as Australia’s growth and development is dependent on the performance and wellbeing of the construction industry. The industry is responsible for satisfying the needs of our ever expanding society by contributing to the growth of our economy, the creation of our infrastructure and improving the standards our everyday lives. To live up to these responsibilities the industry must understand the importance of the work it does and do it in a way that is ethically right, the problem is how do we determine whether the decisions the industry makes justify as ethical? Ethical practice in the construction industry “is not definable, is not implementable, because it is not conscious; it involves not only our thinking, but also our feeling” (Valdemar W. Setzer, 2006). The industry operates in both the public and private sectors which employs many people who all have different morals and values which influences the decisions they make and how they perceive them. This creates a rift in the industry as what is deemed as acceptable varies between person to person

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