Developing a new product involves countless decisions by a number of people, all the way from its conception through post-production. Technical or highly engineered products, such as structures, bridges, vehicles and spacecraft increase the decisions and stakeholders involved, often exponentially.

An analysis of engineering failures shows that even small decisions by lone individuals, at any point in the product lifecycle, could lead to dangerous conditions. The discussion below covers some of those decisions, starting with the design process.

Design oversights

Technological progress is making responsibility for design problems more ambiguous. Previously, a design was solely the designer’s responsibility, using engineering knowledge to calculate load bearing, tolerances and other attributes. In this age of CAD, the burden of some calculations is removed from the designer, moving some responsibility to the CAD programmers themselves.

Technical standards and codes exist in part to remove some ethical guesswork in the design and use of products. If a standards body has carefully and correctly drawn up its codes, using them results in a safe, well-designed, reliable product. But the very use of codes and standards moves some of the responsibility for engineering failure onto the individuals who wrote and signed off on the standard or code itself. Still, the design engineer is often actively responsible for choosing which standards and test parameters to use.

Figure 1: Citigroup Center’s proximity to St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York (left side of image) necessitated its unique cantilevered stilt design. The building was found to be structurally unsound shortly after its completion due to a design oversight and design change during construction.The brief engineering crisis that occurred in 1978 following the completion of Citigroup Center in New York highlights the impact of active responsibility during design. Designing structural engineer William LeMessurier only calculated the wind load from each of the cardinal directions in accordance with New York’s building code. Following the building’s completion, LeMessurier revisited the wind loads and unexpectedly found that quartering winds would have a much greater effect on the building, and thanks to a late design change from welded joints to bolted ones, the building was deemed structurally unstable. Citigroup Center was sufficiently reinforced before an incident occurred, but the gaffe proves that design decisions can result in dangerous situations even if codes are strictly followed.

Normalized deviance

Akin to the old story of boiling a frog, normalized deviance can have catastrophic effects on engineering projects and entire organizations. This phenomenon is a form of complacency that accepts small design anomalies as normal processes, as long as these anomalies do not immediately lead to harmful situations.

Sociologist Diane Vaughn coined the term “normalization of deviance” following the failures of space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. In the case of Challenger, O-ring erosion on the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters had been a concern since the first missions; in each of these flights the seals eroded but ultimately remained intact. The unusually cold temperatures for Challenger’s 1986 launch caused the seals to freeze and quickly fail, causing the shuttle to disintegrate 73 seconds into flight.

In this case, NASA management accepted the O-ring erosion as normal against the adamant advice of the design engineers. But normalized deviance can occur anywhere in the design and manufacturing process, so engineers must remain mindful, and management must maintain an environment that allows engineers to make ethical, responsible decisions to counteract this deviance.

Responsible production

Production and manufacturing introduce a number of ethical decisions at all levels, including the use of quality components to avoid defective products, establishing fair and equitable deals with suppliers and considering how an end product will be used.

Among issues in current manufacturing practices, sustainability and environmental responsibility is at an all-time high. Consumers are more conscious of where and how a manufacturer’s products are made and assembled, and are increasingly skeptical of companies that outsource labor or do little to reduce their carbon footprint.

Whether early or late in the design process, ethical decisions are fostered by a fair and transparent working environment. Engineering management can create such an environment to empower their staff to make good decisions from product conception to prototyping to production runs.

References

TU Delft – Ethical issues in engineering design (PDF)