Engineering Practice - Assignment Example

?Engineering Practice Executive Summary Laura Jenkins an environmental engineer from the of Stoneybrook works at Civil Engineering Companynamely Kentridge consulting engineers as an environmental engineer and also as the spokesperson. Her job is to assess the harmful effect on environment that may be caused due to their construction process. She and her mentor Keith Inglewood was working on a project of assessing the effect of constructing the underground tunnel. In testing the soil they found a colony of earthworm which will be adversely affected by the construction process and the case is about how the issues can be sorted out. The report also highlights on the areas such as the importance of internal communication in an organisation, the professional responsibilities of an employee and the importance of ethics in work. Apart from the aforesaid matters the report also tries to provide a solution to the problem which occurred due to the construction process by maintain an ecological & social balance and also the feasibility of the project. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Ethical Issues 5 Professional Responsibilities 7 Course of Action 8 Conclusion 10 Reference 11 Introduction From the last two decades Ethics has been a large area of discussion. Scholars around the world are spending ample amount of time towards the research of this subject. Ethics is a part of our everyday life. Ethics can be defined as the science which judges the behavior of human beings living in societies. The judgment is on the basis of what is right or wrong. Ethics is a normative science which differs in some way with the positive science. The science which is studied in laboratories of the universities is described as the positive science. Positive science is depicted as what we observe through our eyes or through other sensory organs. There is another science which does not directly deals with the observation rather it is based on the standard of rules and norms by which certain objects are judged, this science is known as normative science. Normative science is also responsible for testing the validity of the set standard of rules (Lillie, 1951, p.1-3). A person gets his ethical principles and values form the moral education at home, lessons taught at school or in some special religious training. Some people also acquire the principles and values from the messages of society via radio, television, newspaper, books and magazines. Some of the individuals also acquire values and principles through real life experiences (Goree & Bredeson, 2011, p.4-5). Managers in many organizations normally encourage ethical practices not only just to behave courteously but also to perform the job ethically. Companies always try to promote practicing of ethics internally within the organization. The way they promote it includes:- Creating and distributing the firm’s code of ethics to their employees. By creating special department to look after the proper execution of ethical practices. By providing proper training to the employees (kaushal, 2008, p.68). Through Counselling. In the context of this topic Engineering and management are both relevant areas of study. Now Engineering can be defined as a profession where there is knowledge of mathematics and natural science gained through theoretical, practical studies and experience, is applied to develop different forces of nature for the welfare of people (Wright, 2002, p.21-22) . Whereas Management can be defined as a process of planning, designing and controlling the environment in which persons, working together in group, successfully accomplishes their desired goals (Weihrich & Koontz, 2006, p.5-6). Control plays an effective role in the management of an enterprise. An organisation comprises of different types of employees on the basis of their needs, want and interest, in that area management control creates coordination and give directions (Flamholtz, 1996, p.4-6). Ethical Issues Ethics in workplace is the set of values and beliefs which guides an employee. Studies have shown that poor ethical standards have led business fall from a certain height. In present scenario like never before employees, managers and other non- managers are expected to behave ethically. A company which has a clearly stated ethics policy faces less ethical dilemmas at work. When an employee has high ethical standard it exhibits some qualities like honesty, loyalty, responsibility, fairness and impartiality (Donaldson & Dummies, 2010, p.479-180). Ethical issues vary from person to person i.e. one may feel something ethical the other may depict it as unethical. An example can be cited for an organisational ethics where an employee makes unlimited personal calls from office and feels it is acceptable and on the contrary somebody may feel it as an unethical practice. Some of the common issues of organisational ethics are as equal opportunity, conflicts of interest, privacy, sexual harassment and most importantly employee health and safety. In this topic about the dilemma of Laura Jenkins they are to construct an underpass in Risdon which will carry Gold- ray freeway under the Risdon state environmental park at a stretch of 850 meters. But Risdon state environmental park is extremely sensitive environmental region as it is the home of Koalas and earthworms. In the environmental assessment phase Laura Jenkins the environmental engineer of Kent- ridge consulting firm found out that there exist a colony of earthworms at a depth of 1.5m inside the ground. She and her mentor Keith Inglewood were informed that this is also the home of Koalas. They were also given information that if the company executes its current design of construction it will hugely affect the health of Koalas and the earthworms. They may even lose their lives due to heavy vibration from the construction process. Both of them figured out that there is a serious need for reconsidering the design of the construction, and simultaneously portrayed the issue but the management did not agreed to change the design as it was approximately on the final stage. The issue pertaining to this subject lies in the protection of such invertebrate animals which may get extinct from that place due to this construction. Now the ethical dilemma comes into place between professional ethics and personal ethics. The professional ethics tells that she should be performing her duties and continue with the project and her own ethics resists her in undertaking the construction process. The general ethics speaks about being kind to others and to consider a redesign. Professional Responsibilities In this topic the professional responsibility of Laura Jenkins lies in looking after the environmental issues pertaining to the construction process. The designing of the project was done by an experienced structural engineer namely Frank Cluey and Bob Markem. According to the designers the underpass will be done through a bored tunnel and the roof of the tunnel will be 4 meters below the ground level. They conducted several soil boring tests which revealed that the tunnel will have to be bored through very heavy clay-soil. During the environmental assessment period Laura founded that there is a colony of earth worms which resides just below 1.5 meters of the ground level. Recently in a presentation about invertebrate animals she was notified that earthworm belongs to genus Wigula, which often penetrate through the soil to a greater depth. After getting this information she became concerned about the project and considered that there is a serious need of redesigning the process. Now according to her professional responsibilities it is her duty to assess the environmental matters which may cause due to their construction. In this respect the social and legal responsibility of Laura Jenkins plays an important role in the preservation of the habitats. Legal responsibility is the responsibility a person holds according to the rules and regulations whereas on the other hand social responsibility is the responsibility a person holds in the context of the society. Professional responsibility has two dimensions one is about the law set by the government and the other is about ethical standard which is independent of law (Wendel, 2007, p.1-2). In this case both the responsibilities would be violated if the construction is carried out. The society will not accept it as it will be a destruction of a natural habitat and even the law also does not permits to construct something by affecting a community. The reason for such situation can be easily identified as a cause of professional negligence. The professional negligence is on the part of the employees as well as the management because it is their duty to look after the employees, whether they are properly working or not. The outcome of this problem was the rising up of conflict issues within the organization. There was a huge communication problem internally. Communication is an important function in organizations as several studies have proved that a successful communication strategy differentiates a well managed and a poorly managed organization. The importance of communication in corporate world cannot be measured with values (Hargie & Tourish, 2004, p.I). There were even conflicts between the designing team and the environment assessment team as soon as the news came forward. It was a big scheduling fault of the project as because the environmental assessment was supposed to be conducted prior to the designing stage. The designer cannot be blamed as he was working according to his schedules and even the environment engineers should not be blamed as they were also performing their duties according to the schedule. On the whole the problem occurred during the initial phase of project scheduling. Apart from this it has also been noticed that not only there was a scheduling error there were lack of efforts from the side of the employees. As there were claims from Ted Power, the ministry for highways in the state government, that the whole project of constructing the goldray freeway an 8 lane wide and 23 kilometers long road will be completed within 5 years. However the actual scenario was different because just 12 month from the commencement of the project several sections were lagging behind the schedule. Course of Action The immediate course of action by Laura Jenkins after the phone call from Lou Bandock, president of environmental action group Green world should be to inform her superiors or possibly her first point of contact i.e. her mentor Keith Inglehood. Only informing the issue to the superiors will not solve the problem, there must be some suitable course of action. Laura Jenkins for example can call back Lou Bandock and assure him that the company is considering a redesign of the project. and at the moment there will be a break in the project and should pledge the president not to protest tomorrow in front of the house of Ted Power, the ministry of highways in the state Government. After responding to the initial problem the next step will be to have a conference with her own department i.e. with her mentor Keith Inglewood to discuss about the recent issue. Based on the outcome of that discussion they should take the issue to the next hierarchical level of the organization. In the next level there should a conference between the environmental assessment team, the designing team and the upper management. The objective of the meeting should be to measure the possibilities of halting the project at this moment and to look after the provision of a new design keeping in mind that there will be massive pressure from the state government. The second objective of the conversation should be to test if there is a redesign whether the project will still remain feasible or the company has to incur losses. If there is a favorable outcome from the discussion the next step would be to communicate the issues to the ministry of highways in the state government. The issue should be addressed to the ministry stressing on fact that if there is no reconsideration on the design of tunnel work, the members of environmental action group ‘green world’ along with their president will be protesting outside his house tomorrow in the early morning. It has been assumed that the minister will agree and allow the company some grace period to conduct the work thinking of the fact that, there may be a chaotic situation or a breakdown of social balance. The company may incur huge losses for the time being but it will surely help them in the long run to position their company as an eco friendly firm. It will also portray their dedication towards social responsibility. Conclusion After going through the case it can be clearly stated that the situation has been caused due to professional negligence. The main error occurred during the project scheduling phase, where the project head or project manager was unable to schedule the project properly. The major mistake was made by not scheduling the environmental assessment prior to the designing stage. The early assessment of environment would have made them an easy flow of operation. The designing could have been done accordingly to the environmental issues. After the threat from Lou Bandock who is the president of environmental action group green, Laura Jenkins should inform the ministry of highways about the happenings. She may also take corrective measures along with it such as to assure them that the project will be on hold for a few days and after considering the redesign it will once again start the operation. It is highly recommended that the company must schedule its work properly from the next projects to follow. Reference Donaldson, M. C., & Dummies, C. (2010). Thriving in the workplace All in one for the dummies. US: John Wiley and sons. Flamholtz, E. (1996). Effective Management Control: Theory and Practice. Germany: Springer. Goree, K., & Bredeson, D. (2011). Ethics in the workplace. US: Cengage Learning. Hargie, O., & Tourish, D. (2004). Key issues in Organizational communication. US: Routledge. Kaushal, S. L. (2008). Business Ethics: Concepts, crisis and solutions. India: Deep and Deep Publication. Lillie, W. (1951). An introduction to ethics. India: Allied Publishers. Weihrich, H., & Koontz, H. (2006). Essentials of Management. India: Tata McGraw-Hill education. Wendel, W. B. (2007). Professional Responsibility: Examples and Explanations. US: Aspen Publishers Online. Wright, P. H. (2002). Introduction to Engineering Library. US: John Wiley and sons. Read More