things to be note

1. Department of Electronics and Communication
Engineering
ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL EXPERIMENTATION
Subject Code & Title: 16EE215 – Organizational Behaviour
and Ethics
1/8/2024 1

2.  INTRODUCTION:
 Experimentation is commonly recognized to play an
essential role in the design process.
 Preliminary tests ,
 simulations,
 materials testing,
 process planning
are done to convert a new engineering concept into a
product.
 Beyond those specific tests and experiments, each
engineering project in total is viewed as an experiment.
 Social experimentation is a research process. The ethics in
experimentation is concerned with the application of moral
principles in the conduct of research in relation to human
beings to protect the rights and welfare of the human beings
involved in the research process.
OBE 2

3. o Even though the research causes harm sometimes in the initial
stages, it may do well for the society on successful completion.
o Therefore a balanced view of justifying any experimentation
should be taken considering the amount of harm and benefit to
society.
OBE 3

4. Engineers –Shared Responsibility
 Engineers are not the sole experimenters
 Managers
 Marketing people
 Public
But, “with knowledge comes responsibility”
•Engineers are in a unique position to:
 Monitor projects
 Identify risks
 Develop facts for informed consent
• An engineering professional will take on the
responsibility!
OBE 4

5. To fulfill their obligations as responsible
experimenters, engineers must:
 A Primary Obligation to protect the safety of
human subjects, providing a safe exit whenever
possible, and respect their right of informed
consent
 use imaginative forecasting of possible side
effects, and reasonable efforts to monitor them
 have autonomous, personal involvement in all
aspects of a project
 accept accountability for the results
 display technical competence and other
attributes of responsible professionals
OBE 5

6. For Remembrance
 Informing for consent requires excellent
communications skills in order to provide
appropriate information in an
understandable way.
 Also, cooperation with other disciplines is
often essential to assess potential side
effects and monitor effects of "social
experiments" through engineering
OBE 6

7. The Design Process
Engineering product design steps:
 Preliminary designs, tests
 More detailed designs
 More tests (? - may cost $$)
 Production
 More tests! (? - may cost $$$)
------------------------------------------------------
 The public purchases/uses the product
 More tests!!! How to gather results of these
tests?
 Role of profits/competition with other
companies?
Dangerous!!! Engineers are asked to do this!
OBE 7

8. ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL
EXPERIMENTATION
 To undertake a great work and especially a
work of novel type means, carrying out an
experiment.
Experimentation :
 A test under controlled conditions that is
made to demonstrate a known truth, to
examine the validity of a hypothesis, or to
determine the efficacy of something previously
untried. The process of conducting such a
test is called as a experimentation
OBE 8

9. Engineering as
Experimentation
OBE 9

10. What is a Engineering?
 Engineering is the application of science
and math concerned with the design,
building, and use of engines, machines,
and structures.
 Engineers figure out how things work
and find practical uses for scientific
discoveries.
 To solve real world problems that
improve the world around us.
OBE 10

11. Engineering & Experimentation
 Experimentation (Preliminary tests or
Simulations) plays a vital role in the design of a
product or process (Engineering).
 Engineering is inherently a risk activity.
 So Engineering should be viewed as a
experimental process.
 Engineering involves People, Environment,
Nature.
OBE 11

12. What is Engineering Process?
 When it is decided to change a new engineering
concept into its first rough design, preliminary
tests or simulation should be conducted.
 Using formal experimental methods, the materials
and methods of designing are tried out. These tests
may be based on more detailed designs.
 The test for designing should be evolved till the
final product produced. With the help of feedback of
several tests, further modification can be made if
necessary.
 Beyond these tests and experiments, each
engineering project has to be viewed as an
experiment.
OBE 12

13. Engineering Process
 Even though various tests and experiments are conducted at various
stages, the engineering project as a whole in its totality can be
viewed as an experiment involve technology development,
human, Environment.
OBE 13
Concept / Planning
Requirement Collection
Engineering
• Design
• Procedure / coding
• Install
• Operate / Maintain
Intended Outcomes
• Users satisfaction
• Company profit
• Feedback
Corporate context
• Time pressure
• Cost pressure
• secrecy
External Context
•Uncertainty
•Legal frame work
•Social impacts
•Environmental impacts

14. SIMILARITIES OF ENGINEERING
PROJECTS TO STANDARD EXPERIMENTS:
 A Detailed designs can be arrived after trying formal
experimental technologies, materials and process.
 Thus several features of every kind of engineering practices
virtually combine to make it appropriate to view engineering
projects as experiments. Three such important features are,
1. Any project is carried out in partial ignorance;
engineer has to perform with uncertainties as he cannot
wait till he gets all the relevant exact data from the ocean of
scientific laws about nature and society in order to
accomplish the assigned task in time.
2. The final outcomes of engineering projects, like those of
experiments, are generally uncertain.
ex: Unexpected dangers to people being near a nuclear
power plant, the possibility of a break of LPG storage tank
etc., OBE 14

15. 3. Effective engineering relies upon knowledge gained about
products both before and after they leave the factory.
Knowledge needed for improving the current products and
creating better ones is gained by study of performance at client site
and through continuous process of learning.
 Learning from the past:
 Learning from the past is a continuous process in all stages
from conception to commission of any engineering project.
 Learning from the past is not effective in organizations due to
lack of channels of communication, misplaced pride, fear of
litigation and plain neglect.
 There are many examples to illustrate why it is not sufficient for
engineers to rely on hand books alone.
 Let us see a few
 Decades earlier the steamship “Arctic” met with a watery grave due
to non-availability of enough number of life boats and yet this
aspect was not taken into account in the case of titanic ship which
also met with similar accident , a major disaster in sea.
OBE 15

16.  In the Union Carbide plant at Bhopal, leaky
valves in MIC system had been a problem on at
least six occasion earlier to the accident.
 The same company had a plant at West
Virginia, USA where there were 28 leaks of MIC
over the previous five years and an internal
memo warning the management had not been
transmitted to the plant in India by Union
Carbide.
 Therefore Engineering, just like
experimentation demands practitioners to
remain alert, well informed at every stage of
project’s history and learn from the past
OBE 16

17.  Contrast of engineering projects with
standard experiments:
Engineering differs from standard experimentation in
some respects demanding engineers to take up special
responsibilities.
 Experimental control:
It is not possible to have ‘experimental group’ and
‘control group’ similar to standard experimentation, as
the experimental subjects are human beings in case of
engineering projects.
 Informed consent :
 Engineering experimentation closely parallels medical
testing of new drugs and techniques on human beings.
 As human beings are involved in all engineering
products, they have moral rights to know about the
facts i.e. informed consent.
OBE 17

18.  A success ‘Informed consent’ for experimentation has two
main elements:
 Knowledge :
All the information needed to make a reasonable decision.
 voluntariness:
They must enter into the experiment without force, fraud
and deception
 Conditions for ‘informed consent’:
 The consent must be given voluntarily
 The consent must be based on the information presented
to them in understandable form.
 The consent must be competent (knowledgeable ) to
process the information and make rational decisions.
 The information should be widely disseminated (spread)
 A group representing many subjects may offer consent.
OBE 18

19.  Knowledge gained through
experimentations:
Engineering projects are experiments that are not necessarily
designed to produce very much knowledge.
 Engineer as responsible experimenter:
 Conscientious:
 The engineer should exhibit a ‘conscientious’ commitment
to live by moral values.
 Engineers should act as guardians of the public interest and to
guard the welfare and safety of those affected by engineering
projects.
 He should not force his own views upon the society.
 The social experimentation involved in engineering should be
restricted by participant’s consent (voluntary & informed
consent).
OBE 19

20.  A comprehensive perspective:
 An engineer should be aware of the experimental nature of any
project undertaken by him.
 He should put in a reasonable effort to monitor them.
 The public hopes that the engineer must undertake some
preventive measures in the development of technology.
 Engineers should bear in mind that solution to the problem is
achieved by adopting preventive technology.
 The engineer should have personal involvement and keep in
touch with the course of handed over project.
 Moral autonomy:
 The engineer should exhibit personal involvement in all steps of
project.
 Moral beliefs and attitudes must be integrated into core of an
individual’s personality in a manner that leads to committed
actions.
OBE 20

21. Accountability :
 It is the willingness to submit one’s action to moral scrutiny
and be open and responsive to the critical assessments of
others.
The accountability is affected in engineering due to several
reasons:
 Each person making only small contribution to something
much larger leads to a lessened sense of personal
accountability.
 Diffusion of accountability takes place in larger institutions in
which most engineers work are designed to delimit areas of
personal accountability within hierarchies of authority.
 Pressure to take up new projects before handing over the
running ones makes the engineer meet the schedule
somehow.
OBE 21

22.  A code also serves as a statement from the profession
to the public as to what to expect from its member,
thus promoting public trust in the professional.
 The code of ethics are established by professional
engineering organizations and professional societies.
 A code of ethics provides a frame work and serves as
guidelines for ethical judgment to a professional and
helps to resolve ethical issues.
 It is not a legal document but it emphasizes
commitments to safety, public health and
environmental protection.
 All profession are expected to have a code of ethics
and members of the profession are expected to adhere
to it.
OBE 22
Codes of ethics

23.  Inspiration and guidance:
The code provide a healthy framework and
guidance so the engineers are inspired and motivated by
support found in code of ethics.
 Support:
The code can act as legal support for
engineers who act ethically against the odds they face in
the organizations.
 Deterrence* and discipline:
Codes form the basis for identifying unethical
act and facilitate possible actions by society.
For e.g., Medical council of India takes action on its
members for misconduct and error by withdrawing the
license to practice. This puts pressure on professionals
to act ethically.
*Prevention ,Avoidance
OBE 23
Roles of codes

24.  Education and mutual understanding:
Professionals can adopt ethical culture in any
organizations by the education by which he has been
exposed to ethics.
 Contributing to the profession’s public image:
Codes help engineers to acquire positive image
amongst public about the ethically committed profession
they are in and to serve effectively and engineers acquire
greater powers of self regulations.
 Protecting the status quo:
Codes help in promoting an agreed minimum level of
ethical conduct. All member should be treated at par when
they commit mistakes.
 Promoting business interests:
Nobody, even if they are not members of the society,
should be prevented from quoting for doing a job.
OBE 24

25. Limitations of Codes :
 Codes give only general guidance to exercise personal
responsibility in their role as social experimenter rather
than to solve moral problems.
 Codes are often restricted to general and vague wordings
 Different entries in codes conflict with each other
sometimes landing the professionals in dilemma.
 Codes cannot serve as the final moral authority for
professional conduct.
 The codes cannot be uniform or same! Unifying the codes
may not necessarily solve the problems prevailing
various professions, but attempts are still made towards
this unified codes.
“Codes need not be treated as ‘Sacred documents’ ”
OBE 25

26. A Balanced Outlook on Law :
 Which stresses the necessity of laws and regulations and also
their limitations in directing and controlling the engineering
practice.
 In order to live, work, and play together in harmony as a
society we need to carefully balance individual needs and
desires against collective needs and desires.
INDUSTRIAL STANDARDS :
 Industrial standards are important for any industry,
Specification helps in achieving interchangeability.
 Standardization reduces the production costs and at the same
time, the quality is achieved easily.
 Industrial standards are established by the Bureau of Indian
Standards ISO 9000-2000 series are typical examples.
OBE 26

27. CASE STUDY
 Case Summary
 Incident Details
 Discussion of engineering ethics and
codes as applicable to case study
OBE 27

28.  1912: Titanic
OBE 28
Introduction: some cases

29.  1973: Ford Pinto : Fuel System design
OBE 29
Introduction: some cases

30. 1974: DC 10 Turkish jet crashes near Paris, killing 345
OBE 30
Introduction: some cases

31.  1984: Bhopal Accident(India): chemical plant
OBE 31
Introduction: some cases

32.  1986: Tchernobyl: Nuclear Power Plant Disaster
OBE 32
Introduction: some cases

33.  1987 : Herald of Free Enterprise (Zeebrugge, Be)
OBE 33
Introduction: some cases

34.  1998 : ICE Train Accident in Eschede (Germany)
OBE 34
Introduction: some cases

35.  2000: Concorde Crash (Paris)
OBE 35
Introduction: some cases

36. Introduction: some cases
 2006 : Maglev Train Accident in Lathen (Germany)

37.  1986: Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster
OBE 37
Introduction: some cases

38. OBE 38
Various Agencies involved in Challenger project

39. OBE 39

40. • January 28, 1986, seven astronauts were killed
while piloting the Challenger space shuttle.
• Challenger exploded seconds after take off due to
failure of rocket booster O-rings.
• Failure of O-ring due to several factors, faulty
design, lack of testing in low temperatures, and
etc.
• Lack of Communication in NASA management
Case Summary
Space Shuttle “Challenger” Case Study
OBE 40

41. Incident Details
The challenger was launched for several reasons:
 Political pressures, economic considerations,
and scheduling backlogs.
 Competition between European space agency.
 Repeated delays in previous launches.
 In time for president Reagan’s speech topic on
education and the space shuttle
 Designs of rockets boosters were successful
and used for many years.
OBE 41

42. Problems considered before Launch:
 Problems found in boosters as early as 1977, efforts for
redesign in 1985.
 O-ring erosion in the booster field joints.
 Engineers brought up the problems and issues; however the
redesign was not supported.
 O-rings and boosters were not tested for temperatures below
40 deg F.
 Bob Lund (Engineering vice president) and Jerald Mason
(Senior Executive) discussed the approval of the launch. The
exact words of Mason said to Lund was to “Take off your
engineering hat and put on your management hat.”
 Lund then changed his mind and approved the launch.
 The next morning, the Space Shuttle explodes within seconds.
OBE 42

43. Ethics and codes in study
 Engineers who are placed in management positions .
 Making decisions we should keep in mind the understanding
of technical matters.
 Implicit social contract between engineers and society.
 Guidance of Codes of Ethics.
 Engineers failed to uphold main code for the American
Society of Civil Engineers.
Issues in technical communication
 Generalization of ethics and codes
 Influences of engineers and those around them
 Backgrounds of engineers
 Effect of society on engineers
OBE 43

44. OBE 44

45. OBE 45