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

5.5.1 Ethical issues
Piping and equipment
Any design process for piping and equipment gives rice to ethical issues,
particularly those pertaining to safety. These ethical issues are discussed in more
detail in section 5.4, I will review them here shortly.
Engineers believe that designing according to legislation and codes leads to
safe installations. Legislation and codes prescribe a lot, but do not cover all
choices regarding safety.
At the start of the design process, a choice has to be made between using the
different codes that the pertinent legislation permits. Some choices regarding
safety are not specified in a code and have to be made by the engineers and / or
customer. For example, accident and load scenarios are not defined in European
codes and legislation. Under the PED engineering companies are obliged to
make a risk analysis of their design but what accident and load scenarios should
be used are not specified.
According to the engineers there is a difference between merely following a
code and following that code well within its limits. The Notified Body cannot
reject designs that comply with legislation and codes but there is a difference in
safety between a design on the lower limits of a code or a design well within its
limits.
There are also ethical issues related to the division of responsibility especially
if the design is to be constructed by another company. Some details are not
specified in a design because a constructing company needs some freedom to
decide what method to use for construction. This may tempt engineers not to
specify any of the difficult details because the construction company will do this.
The designing company might make a design that cannot be produced, or one
that is only possible if employees at the building site run large risks.
Another ethical issue that was raised by the engineers at the engineering
company and the engineer from a Notified Body was that the level of knowledge
regarding designing safe installations within chemical companies, engineering
companies and the Notified Body was decreasing. Chemical companies have
outsourced most of their engineering work where once they had some
experienced engineers working within engineering departments. Engineering
companies fired some of their very experienced senior engineers when the
demand for engineering work was low during the nineteen nineties. The
Stoomwezen has not been allowed to hire new engineers for some years and
now its experienced senior engineers are retiring without the junior engineers
having gained enough experience and knowledge to carry out their certifying
tasks at the same level as that of the engineers who have retired.
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