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

Ethical issues in engineering design
responsible for designing an installation that is complete in details and which is
producible in practice? If an engineer specifies a certain way of construction that
is difficult and labour intensive, the constructor might use an easier way to
produce something that he or she judges to be similar or good enough.
However, such changes may not be as good as those prescribed and may not
achieve what the designing engineers expected, this can lead to problems later.
There are several cases in which details that were changed or further designed
during construction, have led to disasters, for example, the Hyatt Regency
walkway collapse (see also [Gillum, 2000] and [Pfatteicher, 2000]).
Some of the alterations that might be made are predictable for the engineers.
Should the engineer design in a way that is easy to construct and anticipate the
sometimes difficult working conditions of, for example, welders? Or should an
engineer design the best construction and then give his or her drawings to the
contractor? An engineer can argue that he or she does not have all the relevant
information to decide what is easy to construct and what not. The engineer does
not always know what production techniques the specific contractor has available
and has experience with. Not including some details in the drawings and letting
the construction company decide on some details might tempt engineers to leave
the difficult details out (see figure 5.1).
88
Figure 5.1:…..and this pipe should be connected to that pressure vessel
according to the drawings? [picture courtesy of S. Roeser]