Discussion Questions

1. a) This clearly shows that the engineer did not learn from the past disaster occurrence.
Previously, Titanic has created chaos disaster because the engineers are fully confident of
their own greatest invention and did not provide enough lifeboats for the passenger and
crew of the ship. As for the Teton Dam, the designers are very confident in the basic
design that there will be no significant water seepage would occur. Therefore, sufficient
instrument to detect water erosion was not installed. The main reason of these disasters
might be because of the engineers are fear of the embarrassment at failure or fear of
litigation. To be a good engineer, safety is the main priority because she or he is dealing
with the life of people.
b) Lack of communication tools should be overcome in engineering field. As the Teton
Dam disaster, significant information regarding the possibility on water seepage is
already acquired six days before the disaster occur. Six days are a very long period to
think of alternatives method to overcome the water erosion. Unfortunately, the designer
only received the information one day after the disaster happen. Instead of
communication tools are lacking, politician among the cliques in the organization might
be the occurrence of the disaster. Jealousy among one another is a norm in the workplace.
It might be that the information is purposely hiding from the designer to let him/her pride
down.
c) As for this case, engineer itself does not play the role of a good leader as he/she did not
put someone on duty to observe any uncertainty. It is clearly shown that the engineer put
a similarity to standard experiment. It might be because the engineer is lacking of the
experience and critical thinking. He/she did not think of the uncertainties in the scope of
precision of material purchased, nature of stresses the finish product will encounter and
etc.