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

Ethical issues in engineering design
composites and on the fact that most of the engineers had graduated in
aerospace engineering. The engineers had prior experience in designing with
composites, thus during the formulation and operationalisation of requirements
the engineers used their own experience coupled with the internal norms and
ideas on good design practice of the department. The customer had a lot of
experience with the production of trailers and with how trailers are used in
practice. The customer‘s experience was also used during the operationalisation
and formulation of requirements.
In the DutchEVO lightweight car case there were few if any shared internal
norms and ideas on good design practice when the design process started.
Internal norms and ideas on good design practice evolved as the design evolved.
In the beginning of the design process it was decided that a lightweight
sustainable car would be designed. After a while it became an internal norm
that, when choosing between different options, the mass of the car should be
taken as the decisive factor. This norm developed during the design process. It
should be noted that the engineers were working with each other for the first
time and most of the design team members had very limited design experience.
The organisation, within which the design team worked, Delft University of
Technology, consists of a number of different faculties and departments and few
if any shared internal norms exist within the university at least not at this level of
design. So the design team could not refer to such norms. It can be concluded
that in the DutchEVO lightweight car case norms on good design practice were
developed simultaneously with the design.
The first conclusion is that working hypothesis 1b is only partly supported by the
four cases. The way engineers deal with ethical issues does depend on design
type but no influence of design hierarchy on the solution and decision strategy
was seen. The second conclusion is that working hypotheses 2a is convincingly
underpinned by the empirical evidence. In the normal design cases, the
engineers referred to the regulative framework to account for most of the ethical
issues. The regulative framework, however, did not provide rules and guidelines
to account for every ethical issue. Some decisions in the normal design
processes were made based on design experience and company rules. In the
radical design cases decisions were made based on internal design team norms
and, if available, customer norms.
8.3.1 Decision makers and design type and hierarchy
At this point I want to focus on who is involved in the solution and decision
approaches, as these actors can influence the decision that is made. First there is
the question of which engineer(s) deal with the ethical issues and do they do this
162