Engineering Ethics Essay

The responsibility of an engineer is to counter to a need through creating or building something according to the stipulated set of guidelines which performs a particular a given purpose. the creation ,plan or device should perform its stipulated functions without fail. However everything must eventually fail in some way to do its given functions in terms f the level of performance. Therefore engineers must always struggle to design their works in such a way that they avoid failure and more so a catastrophic failure which can lead to loss of property, loss of life or possible injury and damage towards the environmental user of that technology through the study and analysis of engineering disasters modern designers in engineering can how to create with little or no chances of failure and what no to do or what is referred to as engineering ethics. This essay is going to focus on the application of engineering ethics and the differences between a good engineer and a poor engineer. It is not a good argument to say that engineers should emulate the public in taking risks because the engineering failure is considered to be an engineering disaster through the public perception of risks. For example almost the same number of people die from airplanes, bicycles and trains but the public perception of the risks associated with air travel is always relatively higher than that of for bicycles and also trains. This is facilitated by the fact that there is much news reporting on airplane accidents and mishaps compared to the rail and road accidents also think it is not a good argument because most of the engineering disasters are considered to be human factors which include ethical failure. Design flaw is also another cause because they mainly result from unethical practices. I don’t think the argument is good because the deficiency in engineering ethics is perceived to be one of the derivation causes of engineering failure. This is because n engineer as a professional bears a responsibility to both the client, the employer, to the general public and to their profession. This means that they should perform their responsibilities in a very conscientious manner. This will not include only acting in the bound of the law but as a n ethical engineer he will try to always avoid conflicts of interest. To avoid this conflicts of interest the ethical engineer will avoid misrepresenting his knowledge by not accepting those jobs which are outside his area of expertise, by acting in the best ever interest of the environment and society, by fulfilling the terms of his contract or agreements explicitly and also by promoting the education of the young engineers in the his field. Many failures reported in engineering ethics usually have many legal consequences (Matscieng. sunysb. edu, 2003). There is a relationship between risk and safety in terms of management and assessment. For example risk management is perceived to be a process that is used to evaluate the probability of harm occurring and also the severity of that harm the results of this risk assessment can then be used to determine how work can be performed safely. If the risk is not acceptable decisions must be made on how supplementary protective measures that will assist in keeping the porkers safe. Safety audit on the other hand is a process that is used to determine whether or not the risk reduction strategy is reliable with the results of the results made during the risk reduction portion of the risk assessment process. Each risk reduction measure should be validated to ensure that is being in accordance with the decisions which are made during the risk assessment. Risk management includes the systematic use of the results of risk decisions when making decisions regarding the best practicable strategy that will be used inn protecting the workers form harm. On the other hand safety management is the system used in ensuring that the risk levels acquired during the risk management are maintained (Industrialsafetyintegration. com, 2008). When accidents occur investigations should be thoroughly done to ensure that the cause is detected. If the cause of the accidents found to have emanated from the designing or creation of the thing then the engineer who designed the thing will be responsible for the accident. One of the dues of diligence to be undertaken in this case include physical assessment test (PCA). PCAs assess the possible costs which will be acquired during the life of a loan. Major electrical, structural, site improvements, HVAC components, and plumbing of each structure are cautiously and totally examined for condition, completion status, general code conformance, sufficiency for their intended use, life cycle costs and extent of depreciation and defection. The other due diligence to be applied is the Probable Maximum Loss (PML). It evaluates the financial loss of a construction on firm soil owing to the vibratory shift from the maximum probable earthquake. PML can be customized to integrate effects of the site state and the value or quality of the building construction. The maximum feasible earthquake used to analyze this loss is defined as the event that has a 10% chance of exceedance in a 50-year disclosure or exposure period, commonly identified as the â€Å"475-year event. † The PML is calculated as a damage proportion that equals the estimated repair charge divided by the substitution cost of the building. The final standard of due diligence to be applied is The Physical Needs Assessment Report (PNA) refers to the actual structural and mechanical requirements necessary for proper building maintenance. The PNA can be a crucial tool in influencing the subject site value and estimated cost in possible repairs or investment in the property. PNA reports can be customized according to a client’s specific inquiry. Upon conclusion of the physical evaluation of the property, AEI provides a synopsis report outlining the costs to correct the deficiencies which have been noted. AEI also devises and presents commendations together with a budget to increase the physical and artistic condition of the property to make best use of its position in the market place. There are various qualities of a good and a bad engineer. For example a good engineer possess a strong analytical attitude for he possesses excellent analytical skill and continuously examines thing he continually thinks of the ways of making work better through his inquisitive attitude. This is unlike poor engineers for they always continue on dwelling on the early knowledge and are lazy because they do not always take time to analyze things. They always lack perception and that is why many up them give out shoddy performances. A good engineer pay attention to all details for he or she knows the consequences of omitting any details. A bad engineer is most likely to be less attentive to all the details and that is why some of the work may have some errors. A good engineer has excellent communication skills for they can translate complex technical lingo into English and also communicates well verbally with clients. A bad engineer has no fluent communication skills and he might also cause miscommunication with his client. a good engineer takes part in continuing education . this is because he always wishes to stay on top of the developments in the engineering industry.. changes in technology happens so rapidly and a good engineer will tend to keep abreast of the new ideas and research a bad engineer rarely notices the changes happening in his job industry and he is also lazy in taking part in the developments taking place is always innovative by developing new systems and also finding new ways of making the existing thing work more efficiently. A bad engineer rarely brings any new ideas at work and he may also lack the motivation when it comes to the actualization of new ideas. A competent engineer shows the ability of thinking logically because he always possesses top- notch logical skills. he has the ability to make sense out of complex systems and always understands how things work and also how problems come about. Incompetent engineers usually have hard time in foreseeing problems and do not apply his ideas logically to ensure that thing flow smoothly in the organization. a good engineer is mathematically inclined. This is because he possesses excellent skills in mathematics for we all know that engineering is an intricate science that usually involves complex calculations of varying difficult. Incompetent engineers are not very sharp mathematically and therefore they are brought down by complex calculations thus giving miscalculated estimates at work. A good engineer possesses very excellent problem solving skills. This is because he detects any causes of the arising issues and solves them immediately to ensure that all things go smoothly. A poor or incompetent engineer rarely solves the problems accordingly. There might be a discontent in his problem solution ideas which may make work operations inefficient. A good engineer is a team player. This is because he understands they are part of a larger together to ensure the success of the project. A bad engineer rarely cooperates in team work for he believes he is the only one excellently qualified or capable. A great engineer has excellent technical knowledge for they tend understand a variety of computer programs and other systems that are commonly used during an engneeriong project (Engineeringschools. com, 2006). There is a very strong relationship between a good engineer and a good person. A good person has a lot of integrity because he is trustworthy and honest. A good engineer also has a strong integrity for he ensures that he is trusted by the people he comes into contact with. A good person is compassionate for he cares about all people in general. A good engineer is also compassionate for he does his work excellently to ensure that no one is hurt through poorly designed structures. A good person happens to be very reasonable and courage because he stands up for what is fair and also points at the right direction always. A good engineer is also courageous for he doesn’t follow the perception of risks according to the public and acts on his ethical standards. A good engineer is also very reasonable because he plans for his actions so that he may not take a wrong step which might be accompanied by a lot of negative consequences. A moral competent person possesses the ability to promote and even desire to secure well being and to diminish human suffering. This is because he or she responds with the appropriate sensitivity and moral feelings when he comes across human suffering. A moral competence person also distinguishes moral and natural harm, right and wrong a moral competent person also shows the willingness to take initiative for appropriate action. He also has moral imagination for he has the ability to come up with alternative courses of action (Cua, 2010). A morally competent person also bears moral persuasion for he has the ability to persuade and also to be rationally persuaded by others. It is very hard for people to make evaluations of moral competence because we know that human beings are always characterized by pretence especially when they want to achieve something. Again moral competence in people is mainly driven by intrinsic and extrinsic motivations which may be personal that the public can not identify. Moral competence evaluations are necessary because if dealing with people who lack moral values can really be frustrating because a person who lacks moral competence rarely acts accordingly (Wilson, 2003). References Matscieng. sunysb. edu. (2003) Engineering Disasters and Learning from Failure. Retrieved on May 18th from http://www. matscieng. sunysb. edu/disaster/ Wilson, A. (2003). Democracy and moral Skills, Retrieved on May 13 from http://webcache. googleusercontent. com/search? q=cache:85JzO3p-0GkJ:www. wcp2003. org/arnold%2520wilson. doc+moral+competent+person&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ke&client=firefox-a Engineeringschools. com. (2006). Top 10 Qualities of a Great Engineer. Retrieved on May 15th from http://www. engineeringschools. com/engineering-top-10. html. Industrialsafetyintegration. com. (2008). Industrial safety regulation. http://www. industrialsafetyintegration. com/risk-assessment-faq. htm Aeiconsultants. Com. (n. d). Engineering due diligence. Retrieved on May 18th from http://www. aeiconsultants. com/www/services_eng_due. html Cua, A. (2010). Competence, concern, and the role of paradigmatic individuals (chun-tzu) in moral education. 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