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

Introduction
lower top speeds would also save a lot of fuel as the fuel consumption is higher at
higher speeds. Lower fuel consumption also decreases CO2 production. Smaller
speed differences, for example between trucks and cars may possibly decrease the
number of accidents occurring on roads and thereby the number of people
injured and killed on roads. So by choosing to design a car with lower top speeds,
be it by actively limiting the top speed of the car or designing a less powerful
engine, engineers can reduce fuel consumption, CO2 production and the amount
and severity of accidents on highways.
1.2 Research approach
Descriptions of design practices have to be obtained to answer the research
question. This will be done through case-studies [Yin, 1984/1989]. In casestudies,
different ways of obtaining data can be used. In my case-studies, I have
interviewed engineers, observed design teams at work and read official and
informal design documents.
Observing of design meetings allowed me to collect information about the
way the decisions are made by engineers. Observing design meetings is also a
way to get information about what engineers perceived to be the difficulties and
challenges of design processes. The meetings used for the case-studies were
taped and the tapes transcribed. See appendix 1 for a list of the meetings that
were observed.
Design documents, especially the official ones meant for customers, give a
kind of reconstruction of the decisions made in design meetings. The design
documents can sometimes provide additional information, for example, in some
design meetings arguments for or against certain choices were given but the
actual decision was not taken during the meeting although the decision was
documented in the design documents. The more informal design documents
often gave information on specific aspects of the design process. This
information can be used for later official design documents for customers.
Sometimes the informal documents were more detailed than the official design
documents.
Interviews were used to get further information on what role specific
engineers had in the design process and whether they encountered ethical
issues. In the interviews engineers were asked what they considered to be the
ethical issues in their design process. Most interviews were held at or near the
end of the observation period, so it was possible to ask engineers about anything
that was not yet clear to me after having read the design documents and
observed the design meetings. All the interviews were transcribed and the
transcriptions were approved by the interviewees, see appendix 1.
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