PEB 702 Engineering & Society

Tutorial Class
SHORT CASE ANALYSIS
Group B –SBCE
Time: Wednesday 12-1 & Thursday 12-1; Room A307
Instructions
1. Group yourselves into 5 members.
2. Answer the 2 short cases following the steps of analyzing moral and ethical
dilemmas.
3. To be submitted on Thursday 13 February during class hours.

Situation 1. Falling Process

Ms. B (Eng.) works as an engineer at a subsidiary company that supplies engine
components and other parts for Hard Motorcycle Company. The division where Ms. B
works is responsible for carrying out performance testing and quality control on all parts
to ensure that they meet the requirements and allowable tolerances specified by Hard
Company. While testing a new part, Ms. B notices that none of the samples meet all of
the required performance benchmarks. Ms. B brings the performance results to the
attention of her supervisor who is also a licensed engineer. After reviewing the test
results the supervisor tells Ms. B that this particular part is not as important to the
overall performance of Hard Company’s engine as some of the other component parts
that have already passed the compliance tests. Ms. B is instructed by the supervisor to
omit the poor results on this particular part from her compliance report. What should Ms.
B do?

Situation 2: Social Responsibility

Mr. F (Eng.) works for a company that specializes in engineering, procurement, and
construction (EPC) for the oil and gas industry. Mr. F spends much of his time visiting
clients at their drill sites as part of his job. Mr. F has recently been assigned to pay a site
visit to a client, Sy Corp. While visiting Sy Corp's site, Mr. F detects the slight odour of
sour gas (hydrogen sulphide) and notes that the area is not properly marked with a

1CASE ANALYSIS GROUP B -BCE

hazard flag and that there does not seem to be appropriate safety equipment readily
available near the area. Mr. F is aware that sour gas can pose a fire hazard and can be
fatal to humans even at low concentrations. Mr. F is at the drill site as a consultant and
so is not directly responsible for site safety. Site safety typically falls to the responsibility
of the site manager/engineer, so Mr. F points the hazard out to SyCorp's site manager
and suggests a way to address it. At the following visit a few weeks later, Mr. F notes
that the hazard is still not properly marked. Mr. F stresses to SyCorp's site manager the
seriousness of the situation in terms of potential harm to workers or others visiting the
site. The response from the site manager is that addressing the hazard would be costly
and to date there have not been any complaints from SyCorp workers. What should Mr.
F do?

2CASE ANALYSIS GROUP B -BCE