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

Ethical issues in engineering design
safely is declining, not only in the engineering companies, but also in the
Stoomwezen. The Stoomwezen does not have specialists in every field. They used
to rely on the knowledge and experience of the engineering departments of
(petro)chemical companies for some issues. In the past engineers from the
(petro)chemical companies had experience in working with, and designing for,
specific chemicals and the problems involved with handling such chemicals.
Approval by the Stoomwezen was partly based on it having positive experiences
with (petro)chemical companies and trusting the engineers of those companies to
make a safe and reliable design. Nowadays (petro)chemical companies do not
have an engineering department, this coupled with the retirement of experienced
engineers means that the knowledge and experience is no longer available in
engineering companies and at the Stoomwezen. This may cause problems in the
future when inexperienced engineers from an engineering company design an
installation for a (petro)chemical company that no longer retains knowledge and
experience with designing such installations. This may lead to unsafe designs. Of
course these designs have to be approved by the Notified Body but the
Stoomwezen has the same problem. Inspectors do not have knowledge of, and
experience with, the possible problems of all specific installations. So it is
questionable whether the Stoomwezen is always able to check whether a design is
safe enough, and if it is not safe enough, to provide advice to the engineering
company with respect to making it safer. If there is too little knowledge in
engineering design companies and in the organisation that has to certify the
designs, then unsafe chemical installation may be constructed, and this lack of
knowledge becomes an ethical issue.
5.5 Summary of the case and the regulative framework
The design process for piping and equipment in a (petro) chemical installation is
usually middle to low level normal design. The working principle and normal
configuration are already known. Pipes to transport fluids and gases have been
designed for some decades. In most design processes the functional
requirements are comparable to the functional requirements for previous
designs. In some design processes a more radical design might be needed if the
pipes have to transport a chemical that has not been used previously, research
into the effects of the chemical on the possible materials for pipes becomes
necessary. In the higher levels of the design hierarchy, the product to be
produced in the installation is designed, the flow of chemicals established and
the site selected. The design process is organised hierarchically people have
different functions and clear task descriptions and responsibilities.
90