EG 2401 Engineering Professionalism

Tutorial No. 3 (Semester 1 2016/2017)

Question 1
In 2014 a Taiwans leading cooking oil maker was accused for serious breaches of food
safety regulations. This giant company, known for its long history, good reputation, and its
gourmet products lines both domestically and overseas, was found to recycle cooking oil
made from kitchen waste and grease from leather process, and by which had made
dishonest huge profits due to extreme low costs over many years. One unjust consideration
leading to such kind of malicious business behaviors is that the problematic products would
only possibly cause chronic instead of immediate damages to human health. Despite being
astonishing and surely unaccepted by the general public in Taiwan, the Supreme Court
exonerated the immoral big oil maker without any penalties, by stating the reason that there
is no any scientific evidence to link any components in the recycling oils with inducing
cancers or other health concerns.
Analyze the ethical aspects of this incident (i.e., attribution of responsibilities and
obligations among merchandizers, authorities of supervision, government jurisdiction unit,
as well as individual consumers), and discuss how to prevent such maliciously fraudulent
activities.

(b) Extend the above analyses and discussions, but for industry of Smart Phones. Due to
limited time, please take the manufacturing defect in the battery of Samsung Galaxy Note7
which had recently caused explode as the only example to discuss.

(c) Extend the above analyses and discussions, but for the Tobacco Manufacturers.
For these three cases, considering some or all of the following:
Differentiate the differences in nature and implications among three cases; provide
suggestion in law making to prevent the damages to society and individuals; find the
common rules from any Engineering Codes you have read to support your points of view.

Question 2
In the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers, the term sustainable development is defined
as the challenge of meeting human needs for natural resources, industrial products, energy,
food, transportation, shelter, and effective waste management while conserving and
protecting environmental quality and the natural resource base essential for future
development.
Use the case study of nuclear engineering to analyze the ethical concerns of nuclear
plants in terms of its sustainability given the definition above. Please take the 2011
Japanese nuclear accidents Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as the priority
example for your analyses and discussion.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster)

Question 3
(a) In the Singapores Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics under the Professional
Engineering Act (Chapter 253, section 36), Part II, sub-paragraph 1(4), it is said He
(a professional engineer) shall not use the influence of a salaried position to direct
clients to another professional engineer, licensed corporation or partnership or other
engineering firm in which he has financial interest.. Explain the meaning of it and
give an analysis on the situations possibly encountered as a professional engineer, and
judge which can be ethically allowed, and which cannot? What if there is virtually no
financial interest at all to the professional engineer himself; is it then always ethical?
(b) In the same document, Part I, sub-paragraph 8, it is said A professional engineer shall
not canvass or solicit professional employment or offer to make payment for the
introduction of such employments. For the first half of this rule, why is that unethical?
Also, considering a related situation, is it ethical for a professional engineer to use
higher salary and/or position to attract an engineer from other companies to join his
company? Does the judgement make any difference whether or not it is from the
companies which compete similar projects/business with your company? Discuss all
the potential sensitivities involved in such scenarios.

Question 4
Mr. A works in a government agency and he is in charge of governments road engineering
projects. Now there is a project at his hands which is close to the start of planned
construction works. According to the contract, the contractor (a construction company X)
has to submit the engineering plan and related design figures for As approval before
getting the permission to start construction works. The professional engineering Mr. B,
working for the company X and in charge of this government project, had submitted the

construction plans to Mr. A several times, but not yet gotten the approval since Mr. A
continues finding some flaws in Mr. Bs design plan. B begins to lose his patience, so he
contacts Mr. A directly expressing that he would like to understand further where are the
main deficiencies of his submission. After consultation with Mr. A, Mr. B realizes that
certain requests from Mr. A are actually beyond his ability, so he asks whether Mr. A can
introduce someone with relevant expertise to him for consultation. Mr. A agrees, and
recommends his good friend Mr. C who works in another engineering consulting company
to Mr. B. Mr. B then successfully gets significant helps from C, and as Mr. B expected, the
his updated construct plan is successfully approved by Mr. A.
In order to express his great thankfulness to Mr. A and Mr. C, Mr. B invited both of them
together for an expensive dinner, and also give Engineer C a substantial amount of money
as rewards.
Please judge this case study from each of three persons positions whether there are ethical issues
arisen or not. If yes, suggest better alternatives if you are Mr. A, Mr. B, or Mr. C under the same
situations, what will you act? Please attempt to find any rules from any PE Codes of Ethics to

support your points.