5.

2 ENGINEERING CODE OF ETHICS ADORPTED BY IEM AND BEM

Methyl-tert-butyl-ether production plant is an industrial engineering plant that involves

several factors that needs to take into consideration in terms of environmental pollution,
product safety and workplace hazard. These problems might expose to potential hazards
which can lead the engineer and the organization into an ethical dilemma. The code of ethics
is the solution of these ethical dilemma and serve to provide guidance on acceptable conduct,
raise awareness and consciousness of issues to enable engineers to make professional
decision making. There two important body of the code ethic in chemical engineering namely
the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and Board of Engineering Malaysia (BEM)

5.2.1 Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM)

Code of Professional Conduct

1. He shall act strictly in a fiduciary manner in relation to his clients, and his charges to such
clients shall constitute his only remuneration in connection with such work, except as
provided by paragraph (4) of this Code of Professional Conduct.

2. He shall not accept any trade commissions, discounts, allowances, or indirect profit in
connection with the work upon which he is engaged.

3. He shall not, without disclosing the fact in writing to clients, be a director or member of, or
a shareholder in or act as agent for, any contracting or manufacturing company or firm
business with which he may have occasion to deal on behalf of his clients, or have any
financial interest in such a business.

4. He shall not receive, directly or indirectly, any royalty, gratuity or commission on any
patented or protected article or process used on work which he is carrying out for his clients,
unless such royalty, gratuity, or commission has been authorized in writing by those clients.

5. He shall not under any circumstances solicit advisory or consultative work, either directly
or by an agent, nor shall he pay, by commission or otherwise, any person who may introduce
clients to him.

6. He shall not be the medium of payments made on his clients’ behalf to any contractor, or
business firm (unless specially so requested by his clients), but shall only issue certificates or
recommendations for payment by his clients.

Regulations on Code of Professional Conduct

1. A member shall at all times take care to ensure that his work and the products of his work
constitute no avoidable danger of death or injury or ill health to any person.

2. A member shall take all reasonable steps to avoid waste of natural resources, damage of the
environment, and wasteful damage or destruction of the products of human skill and industry.

3. A member shall take all reasonable steps to maintain and develop his professional
competence by attention to new developments in science and engineering relevant to his field
of professional activity and, if he is an employer, shall encourage his professional employees
to do likeness.

4. A member shall not undertake responsibility as professional engineer which he does not
believe himself competent to discharge.

5. A member shall accept personal responsibility for all work done by him or under his
supervision or direction, and shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that persons working
under his authority are competent to carry out the tasks assigned to them and that they accept
personal responsibility for work done under the authority delegated to them.

6. A member called upon to give an opinion in his professional capacity shall, to the best of
his ability, give an opinion that is objective and reliable.

7. A member whose professional advice is not accepted shall take all reasonable steps to
ensure that the person overruling or neglecting his advice is aware of any danger which the
member believes may result from overruling or neglect.

8. A member shall not make any public statement in his capacity as a professional engineer
without ensuring that his qualification to make such a statement and any association he may
have with any party which may benefit from his statement are made known to the person or
persons to whom it is directed.

9. A member shall not, in self-laudatory language or in any manner derogatory to the dignity
of the profession advertise or write articles for publications, nor shall he authorize any such
advertisement or article to be written or published by any other person.

5.2.2 Board of Engineering Malaysia (BEM)

1. A registered engineer shall at all times hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the
public.
  A professional engineer shall approve and sign only those engineering documents that
he has prepared or are prepared under his direct supervision.
 A professional engineer shall certify satisfactory completion of a piece of work only if
he has control over the supervision of the construction or installation of that work, and
only if he is satisfied that the construction or installation has fulfilled the requirements
of the engineering design and specifications.
 A registered engineer shall not reveal facts, data or information without prior consent
of the client or employer except as authorized or required by law or when withholding
of such information is contrary to the safety of the public. If facts, data or information
is released prior to consent of employer or client, it is considered a crime as the rivals
or the competitor can have business or technological edge over the company engineer
is working for.
 A registered engineer having knowledge of any violation of the code and local
authorities regulations shall report thereon to appropriate professional bodies and,
when relevant, also to public authorities and cooperate with the proper authorities in
furnishing such information or assistance as may be required.
 When the professional advice of a professional engineer is overruled and amended
contrary to his advice, the professional engineer shall, if the amendment may in his
opinion give rise to situation that may endanger life and/or property, notify his
employer or client and such other authority as may be appropriate and explain the
consequences to be expected as a result of his advice being overruled and amended.

2. A registered engineer shall undertake assignments only if he is qualified by education and

experience in the specific technical fields in which he is involved.

 A professional engineer shall not affix his signature to any plan or document dealing
with subject matter in with he lacks competences, nor to any plan or document not
prepared under his direction and control.
 A professional engineer shall not accept assignment and assume responsibility for
coordination of an entire project and sign and stamp (P.E. stamp) the engineering
document for the entire project unless each technical segment of the project is signed
and stamp personally by the qualified engineer who has prepared the respective
segment of the project.

3. A registered engineer shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful
manner.
  A registered engineer shall be objective and truthful in professional reports,
statements and testimony. He shall include all relevant and pertinent information in
such reports, statements, or testimony, which should bear the date indicating when it
was current.
 A registered engineer may express publicly only technical opinions that are founded
upon his competence and knowledge of the facts in the subject matter.
 A registered engineer shall not issue statement, criticism or argument on technical
matter that is inspired or paid for by interested parties, unless he has prefaced his
comments by explicitly identifying the interested parties on whose behalf he is
speaking and by revealing the existence of any interest he may have in the matter.

4. A registered engineer shall act for each employer or clients as faithful agent or trustee.

 A registered engineer shall disclose all known or potential conflicts of interest that
could influence or appear to influence his judgement or the quality of his services.
 A registered engineer shall not accept compensation, financial or otherwise, from
more than one party for service on the same project, unless the circumstances are fully
disclosed and agreed to by all interested parties.
 A registered engineer shall not solicit or accept financial or other valuable
consideration, directly or indirectly, from outside agents in connection with the work
for which he is responsible. This code prevents engineer from taking or asking any
financial or valuable consideration, from outside agents who are connected to work he
is responsible for.
 A registered engineer as advisor or director of a company or an agency shall not
participate in decision with respect to particular services solicited or provided by his
or his organization.
 A registered engineer as shall not solicit or accept a contract from a body or agency on
which a principal or officer of his organization served as a member of that body or
agency unless with knowledge and consent of that body or agency.
 A registered engineer while acting in his professional capacity shall disclose in
writing to his client of the fact if he is a director or member of or substantial
shareholder in or agent for any contracting or manufacturing company or firm or
business or has any financial interest in any such company or firm or business, with
which he deals on behalf of his client.
 All professional advice shall be given in good faith. This code focused on the fact that
advices given by the engineers shall be in good faith meaning, it should be for good of
the profession.
5. A registered engineer shall conduct himself honorably, responsibly, ethically and lawfully
so as to enhance the honor, reputation and usefulness of the profession.

 A registered engineer shall not falsify his qualifications or permit misrepresentation of

his or his associates’ qualifications. He shall not misrepresent or exaggerate his
responsibility in or for the subject matter of prior assignments. Brochures or other
presentations incident to the solicitation of employment shall not misrepresent
pertinent facts concerning employers, employees, associates, joint ventures, or past
accomplishments.
 A registered engineer shall not offer, give, solicit or receive, either directly or
indirectly, any contribution to influence the award of a contract which may be
reasonably construed as having the effect of intent to influencing the award of a
contract. He shall not offer any gift or other valuable consideration in order to secure
work. He shall not pay commission, percentage or breakage fee in order to secure
work.
 A registered engineer shall check with due diligence the accuracy of the facts and data
before he signs or endorses any statement or claim. He shall not sign on such
documents unless, where necessary, qualifications on errors and inaccuracies have
been made.
 A registered engineer shall respond, within reasonable time, to communication from
the board or any other relevant authority on matter pertaining to his professional
service.
 A registered engineer shall not maliciously injure or attempt to maliciously injure
whether directly or indirectly the professional reputation, prospect or business of
another engineer.
 A registered engineer shall not be a medium of payment made on his client’s behalf
unless he is so requested by his client nor shall he, in connection with his work on
which he is employed, place contracts or orders except with the authority of and on
behalf of his client.

5.3 RELATED CASE STUDY ON CODE OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT

Case Study

Pipe break due to relief valve chatter.

 Figure 1 Power plant bleed condenser

Scenario

In this situation, the bleed condenser relief valve open and chatters causing inlet pipe high
vibration produced. Thus, relief valve inlet pipe breaks at elbow resulting in a small reactor
loss of coolant accident. Operators correctly respond to cool reactor and contain spill within
containment. Consequently, 4 reactor tanks shut down where 3 reactors for 3 months pending
root cause investigation and 1 for 12 months until repairs completed.

Analysis

For this case study, we have to identify the factors of this incident or problem. Thus, the
cause that lead this accident because of the design engineer located relief valve in the wrong
place. Furthermore, this location is very near to reactor which makes difficult for periodic
testing and the exposure of radiation fields was too high if the relief valve is too close to the
reactor tank. Therefore, the relief valve can easily chatter because no maintenance of relief
valve has been made. The other cause is the construction engineer relocated relief valve thus,
this modified installation was dynamically unstable for relief valve due to the relocate of
relief valve from other place to other place. Therefore, the construction engineer reissued ‘as
built’ drawings as there is no procedure requirement for the changes of drawing due to
relocate the relief valve. Then, the design engineer did not check ‘as built’ compliance with
ASME code’s dynamic stability requirements because they assumed the construction
engineer had checked their ‘as built’ drawings with ASME code’s dynamic stability
requirement.

Solution

From the analysis, we can found the construction engineer should require the procedure
requirement approval by the design engineer in a resulting of the changes of ‘as built’
drawings. Besides, the design engineer should check carefully ‘as built’ drawings by the
construction engineer which the drawings have to follow the ASME code’s requirement for
relief valve dynamic stability. The other causes that made this error is the inadequate
knowledge about ASME boiler and pressure vessel code-section III design changes. In this
case study, the ethics involved is the construction engineer did not qualify to do design work
or did not consult qualified engineer as stated in BEM code of ethics (no.1) where a
professional engineer shall certify satisfactory completion of a piece of work only if he has
control over the supervision of the construction or installation of that work, and only if he is
satisfied that the construction or installation has fulfilled the requirements of the engineering
design and specifications. The other issues of ethics is the design engineer did not retain
design responsibility as they reissued without checking ‘as built’ drawings. This kind of
ethics is stated in the code of BEM (no.5) where a registered engineer shall check with due
diligence the accuracy of the facts and data before he signs or endorses any statement or
claim. He shall not sign on such documents unless, where necessary, qualifications on errors
and inaccuracies have been made. Last but not least, the issue of ethics involved in this case
study is the ineffective supervisory review and approval of safety critical engineering work
because the inadequate knowledge about ASME boiler and pressure vessel code. This issue of
ethics can be related with BEM codes of ethics (no.3) where a registered engineer shall be
objective and truthful in professional reports, statements and testimony. He shall include all
relevant and pertinent information in such reports, statements, or testimony, which should
bear the date indicating when it was current.

5.4 EFFECT OF CODE OF ETHICS TO CHEMICAL ENGINEER

The codes ruled by IEM and BEM are to prevent the registered engineer from unethic action
and bad behaviour. By these codes, the engineer will have more consideration over the safety,
health and welfare of the public as the profession as an engineer has a significant impact to
the safety and health especially involving the life of public. Besides, a chemical engineer
must perform under a standard of professional behaviour which requires adherence to the
highest principle of the ethical conduct on behalf of the public, clients, employees and the
profession. A Chemical Engineer must require responsibility, independent, respect, fairness
and equity in their work or project. A Chemical Engineer is required to take full responsibility
on the works done by him or completed under his supervision in the plant design. Therefore,
if any incident occurred in the plant area, the engineer have to responsible to that accident.
The code also stated that as an engineer, he must ignore any intervention by a third party
which could influence the performance of his professional duties to the detriment of his client
such as accepting bribes or awards, he must safeguard his professional independence at all
times and avoid any situation which would put him in conflict of interest. The code of ethics
highlighted that the engineer should respect other engineer and his employer or any past
employer. According to the Code of Professional Conduct, this code emphasize that a
Chemical Engineer shall not attempt to injure the business of other engineer or improperly
disclose the business of his employer or past employer. Besides that, these codes also shape
the engineer to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data,
treat fairly all persons and to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment
by false or improper action. Last but not least, this code stated that a registered engineer shall
not reveal facts, data or information without prior consent of the client or employer except as
authorized or required by law due to public safety as well.

5.5 ETHICS IN ENVIRONMENTAL, SAFETY AND HEALTH PROBLEMS

The ethical issues in terms of environmental safety and health during the operation of
designed plant must be concerned to ensure the public welfare, safety and health are
preserved. Ethical issues on environmental safety and health has been highlighted during
designing plant design. It is one of the most challenging tasks to balance the pros and cons
between plant profitability as well as to preserve the environmental safety and health
especially for processing chemical plant. For our design team, we applied Code of
Professional Conduct as the base of guideline to overcome this problem. Usually, we surely
put safety above profitability in our design because none of us would take the responsible to
the serious impact and costs of loss due to the accident once it happens. It is almost
impossible to eliminate risk entirely but we could minimize the risk rather than just ignore the
safety features in designing plant design. Although the risk is very low, still there might be a
chance for accident to happen if we disobey the safety regulations..
Firstly, the alternatives process that we chose is 2nd process which is the process of fluid
catalytic cracking which isobutylene react with methanol to produce methyl-tertbutyl
ether(MTBE) with the aid of polymeric Amberlyst-15 catalyst because this alternative
process is the lowest potential risk can be occurred among the other two alternatives process
which are the process from butane to become isobutylene and then further reacts with
methanol to produce MTBE , thus it involved many hazardous chemical involved during the
reaction to produce the final product which is MTBE. The other alternatives process is the
process dehydration of tertbutyl-alcohol(TBA) to become MTBE and water. As we know,
TBA is the hazardous chemical as it is very soluble in the water which contaminate the
groundwater if leaking of the pipelines of raw materials and produces irritating vapours
which can damage the eye if we do not use the eye protection when handling this chemical.
Therefore, we could manage the hazard and risk from the reaction if we minimize it.

Next, the second ethical issue to enhance the plant safety is implementing safety valve and
safety control system such as alarm and pressure relieve valve based on the principle of
multiple layers of protection, although the installation and maintenance costs are quite
expensive. In the basic process control system which includes sensor, controller and indicator
to ensure the desired condition achieved as well as for plant safety, alarm system is included
at some locations if required such as high and low temperature and pressure alarm. This
protection installed on the equipment such as distillation column in order to minimize the
possible mistakes caused by human error. As the reactions involved are highly exothermic
and thus temperature alarm system is necessary installed on the reactor to ensure that the
operator could be alert if reactor outlet temperature becomes excessively high in some
abnormal situation.

Based on our plant design, we are highly considered the principle of hold paramount of the
safety and health of the environment and public, thus public safety always be our prioritize
before profits. The members in design must always looking forward to the occupational
safety and health to prevent any possible incident occurred in the plant design area.

5.6 ETHICS IN DESIGN PROJECT

Plant design project is a big task for professional engineer to handle. In reality, the industry
especially in handling chemical substances must cooperate with the special service such as
the consultancy firm, which it involves a big number of expert groups and people, at the same
time it also takes quite a long time for a design to be ready for technical approval and
construction. As undergraduates or fresh graduates who actually encounter plant design for
the first time which doesn’t have experience to design the project, we admitted that our
proposed plant design is not completely perfect. Nevertheless, we never forget to obey the
Code of Professional Conduct.

As a professional and responsible engineer, ethic codes must be obeyed during conducting or
handling any project, regardless time constraint and complication in the design. In the midst
of time constraint, breaking the engineering ethics cannot be avoided. For instance, when
designing the size of equipment required so as to satisfy the allowable size of the real
equipment in industry as well as to prevent violation of law and environmental related
legislation as well as safety precaution. The real equipment sizing require modification of
some constants of the equation used in the equipment sizing in order to take consider the
effect of scaling up plant capacity. Our design of equipment sizing is commonly based on the
literature like journal and books. This source is only carried out in lab or pilot plant scale
instead of industrial scale. Hence, the value of the constants obtained from the literature
cannot be used because the limitation of constants which they are not suitable to our design.
Furthermore, we cannot get the actual constants used in industrial scale equipment sizing due
to company privacy policy. Besides, using Aspen software only gives the estimation value of
equipment sizing which does not consider the condition needed. Therefore, no other way
except making logical and reasonable engineering-based assumptions in order to carry out the
logical equipment design. Thus, our equipment sizing just produces the result which is in the
range for the real industry based on the demand of products produced.

There are other ways that can be suggested to be implemented in every design project
including asking for advices and learning the knowledge from the experts especially lecturers
or the professional engineers from the industry. Discussion about the potential to disobey the
code of ethics should be conducted among the experts because they knew better and
experienced it many years. Besides, the related consequences based on the ethical problems
occurred should be discussed, too. Last but not least, the tips for starting any projects given,
we have to plan and distribute the works properly based on their expertise in that knowledge
to save the time. By planning the work such as proper schedule and Gantt chart, meeting with
the members regularly in order to update their works. Thus, the project works smoothly and
the plant design can be completed without violating any ethic codes.