Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Design of a lightweight trailer
set in place so drivers will not use trailers that are too high because they face high
fines and it is very likely that they will get caught. 3
After the requirements had been established the engineers started to generate
concepts. Most of the work was done by two engineers. One engineer acted as the
project leader, she had a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering and about 5
years of experience with designing lightweight structures. Another engineer did
the finite element modelling. He also had a master’s degree in Aerospace
Engineering followed by a two year designing course and about 7 years of
experience with designing lightweight structures. His speciality was finite
element modelling. 4 CLC is a flat organization; an employee can be the project
leader for one project while participating in other projects. There is one person
who coordinates the employees and another whose main task is the acquisition of
projects, although every employee should try to obtain projects. The main design
team for the trailer consisted only of the two engineers previously described but
they consulted with other engineers when they needed their expertise. Two
engineers were regularly involved, one an expert on structural design with fibre
reinforced plastics, working in the same room as the project finite element
specialist, gave advice during the design process; and one engineer who had a lot
of experience with trailer design was regularly asked for his opinion. The
atmosphere at the department in the engineering company was open.
Liz was as project leader responsible for the planning of the project and the
communication with the customer. Hans was responsible for the finite element
models and calculations. In the beginning Hans was rather passive and wanted to
be directed. However, further on in the design process this became less the case.
Hans’ passivity at the beginning of the project was probably due to the fact that
he had other projects for which he had to do a lot of work.
The division of responsibilities and tasks was not static. What should be done
and who should do it was discussed during the process. When certain data
should be gathered or certain calculations made there was always some active
assigning of tasks. This was done almost casually as the quotes, taken from
several discussions, indicate.
Hans talking to Liz about preparing the customer for the limited
applicability of the finite element model: ‘You have to prepare the
——————————————————————————————————
3 Switzerland has a lot of long tunnels which add additional danger if a truck trailer combination
gets stuck in one, and of course it will cause serious delays while the truck and trailer
combination is extracted from the tunnel.
4 From this point on I will use the name “Liz” for the project leader and the name “Hans” for the
Finite Element Modeling engineer, “Theo” is used for the roommate who is an expert on
structural design with fibre reinforced plastics.
129