Engineer in society

Chemical waste case study

Engineer in society
Proposal submitted
By
Sina Enteshari Najafabadi
TP024679

In partial fulfilment of the requirement

For the bachelor of engineering
In mechatronic

Supervisor
Ms. Subhashini a/p Gopal Krishnan
Asia pacific university college of technology and innovation

2013

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Acknowledgment

Would like to thanks god in first place, for giving me the strength and health to do
this project and I also would like to thank my great lecturer, Ms. Subhashini for
guiding and helping me and my friends throughout this project. This task could be so
difficult in my point of view without her help. not forgotten my family for providing

everything and specially my mother for supporting me every day nonstop to help me to study
in foreign land and my father that he helped me out a lot in doing this project and finally I
would like to thanks to my all best friend who never leave me alone and always support me
by their advice and guide.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgment.......................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Literature review........................................................................................................................6
Case study................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
Reference..................................................................................................................................16

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Introduction
Human is one of the most amazing creatures on earth that has shaped the world that he is
being living on for thousands of years. At first he might have started by caving cave to live in
and then move to innovating more advance technique such as madding tool out of wood and
later in stone age used stone as their primary tool and of course iron age that metal was
replaced and they continuously grow in their knowledge but its not only that, mankind
population has expend and growth to billon and earth get more crowded and more difficult to
control. This is when science and technology is expanding and updating each second. These
high advance technology and tools made human an unstoppable creature in caregiving and
making new structure.
Engineers are the one who works and study nonstop in order to bring what we have now, a
better definition of engineer could be a person whose principle duty is to apply knowledge to
create practical devices, structure and processes to serve mankind. As mentioned before
mankind created the world as what he wanted to be by expanding the technology and
factories around the globe in addition high rate in population made controlling these factories
and companies impossible to follow and see if they are really doing right and obeying rule.
Any work environment needs to have regulations in place. That is why engineering safety has
been developed and introduced to all engineer so that they take serious action in advance
before any unfortunate thing happen. Any damaged work tools or equipment may cause an
accident. If an accident happens then this will need to be noted down in the correct book for
future reference. Important factors which need to be written down include the person or
persons involved, times and dates that the incident happened, and the events leading up to the
injury. The primary goal of safety engineering is to manage risk, eliminating or reducing it to
acceptable levels. Safety engineering attempts to reduce the frequency of failures, and ensure
that when failures do occur, the consequences are not life-threatening not only that but also
accidents may has the potential to waste large sums of money and likely more important,
human lives and environmental damage.
We live in a society where there are all kind of people, to live harmonislouly, certain
community standard is required. Ethics is important in work place as there might be a lot of
problem happening and if there are no moral philosophy to solve the problem also work place
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needs harmonically connecting, a simple problem might turn into huge problem, ethics is a
branch of moral philosophy that delves into the good and respected action that are acceptable
by the majority of the sociality. In engineering, ethics is vital in ensuring healthy professional
practise for the benefit of public, employee and engineers themselves.
In the given scenario, engineer in charge is facing an ethical dilemma. In one hand, he has to
obey his superior to be able to keep working in the organisation but at the same time he has
an obligation to hold paramount the safety , health and welfare of the public .there are not
much of choice for him, he has to either report the problem to the higher authorizes which
will upset his superior and even might lose his career, on the other hand by not doing
anything the caused problem might put danger a lot of lives and endanger the health and
safety of public.

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Literature review
As the community grow bigger and population increased, most of the organisation tried to
bring justice by conducting a series of rules that could not only bring peace and better place
for people but also bring justice. Occupation safety and health laws are available to ensure the
safety, health and welfare of people at work as well as protecting people from the safety and
health hazard arising from the activities sectors such as, manufacturing, construction,
transportation .so these rule protect everyone form harm and help workers and engineers to
have better work place, the most important codes of professional conduct are as follow.
CODE OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT:
I.

A Registered Engineer shall at all times hold paramount the safety, health and
welfare of the public.

The above code gives an engineer a full control over his project, it means if the project was
endangering life of society such as people and even worker, the engineer is able to deny his
supervisor and superior if they fail to take action regarding of safety of society. The engineer
shall report the case to the higher department to stop any unwanted harm to society.
II.

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 which he lacks competence. A Professional Engineer shall not accept
assignment and assume responsibility for coordination of an entire project and sign and
stamp the engineering documents for the entire project unless each technical segment of the
project is signed and stamped personally by the qualified engineer who has prepared the
respective segment of the project.
III.

A Registered Engineer shall conduct himself honourably, responsibly, ethically and

lawfully so as to enhance the honour, reputation and usefulness of the profession.

A Registered Engineer shall not offer, give, solicit or receive, either directly or indirectly, any
contribution. He shall not offer any gift or other valuable consideration and shall not pay a
commission, percentage or brokerage fee in order to secure work. The professional engineer
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shall respond to the board of engineering on time and may not deny any rule of boarder as he
is a part of society of engineering and responsible for his action honourably so an engineer
shall not accept any other register engineer either directly or indirectly as it is not only rude
but also it is against the moral of the society, if he failed to do so may face serious action.
Also a Registered Engineer shall not be a director or executive of or substantial shareholder
for any contracting or manufacturing company or business related to building. If such
approval is given, such Engineer shall not undertake any contract work wherein he is
engaged as a consulting engineer in such project.

IV.

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 and shall not issue
statement, criticism or argument on technical matter that is inspired or paid for by interested
parties.

V.

A Registered Engineer shall act for each employer or clients as faithful agent or
trustee.

A Registered Engineer shall not accept compensation, financial from more than one party for
one service on the same project, unless the circumstances are fully disclosed and agreed to by
all interested parties and shall not solicit or accept financial, directly or indirectly, from
outside agents in connection with the work which he is responsible.
Not only code of conduct is helping engineering society but also Occupational Safety and
Health Act has been provided since 24th February 1994 to help society and engineers. the
Occupational Safety and Health Act or is short form OSH is an Act which provides the
legislative framework to secure the safety, health and welfare among all employees and to
protect others against risks to safety or health in association with the activities of individuals
at working environment.

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OSH is enforced by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH).DOSH is a

government department under the Ministry of Human Resources Malaysia, it will ensure
through enforcement and promotional works that employers, self-employed persons,
manufacturers, designers, importers, suppliers and employees always practise safe and health
work culture, and always comply with existing legislation, guidelines and codes of practice.
The OSH codes are summaries as follow.
Occupational Safety and Health Act

OSH codes are there to secure the safety, health and welfare of employee against risks
to safety or health arising out of the activities at work.
OSH promotes an occupational environment for persons at work which is adapted to
their physiological and psychological needs.
OSH provide the means whereby the associated occupational safety and health
legislation may be progressively replaced by a system of regulations and approved
industry codes of practice operating in combination with the provisions of this Act
designed to maintain or improve the standards of safety and health.
Both employee and employer has their duty against the OSH codes and they must follow the
rule as it is not only has benefit for themselves but also for public. The objective of OSH is
to demonstrate the company's commitment and concern to ensure safety and health at place
of work. The duties of both sides will be review and discussed to make a better and
understandable situation of our case.
Duties of employee while at work base on OSH:
Take reasonable care for the safety of himself and other persons at working environment, and
Cooperate with the employer.
Wear or use any protective equipment and clothing provided by the employer for the purpose
of preventing risks to the safety and health at all times.
Any employees failed to follow the regulation shall face justice and might have a heavy
coincidence from cash to jail awaiting them.
Even though by having lots of rule and regulation but still some companies are failed to
follow the rules and build safe work place, even there are some employee have no idea about
these rules and regulation due to their lack of education and research, in order to stop such a
disaster, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health or NIOSH was Established on
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24 June 1992, its function is to provide training, consultation services, disseminate

information and conduct research in the field of OSH and assist Employers and Employees
to manage Occupational Safety and Health in their organization effectively as well as
providing Quality Solutions for OSH issues in a professional manner. The following figure is
describing all the accident occurred by 2011 due to lack of information about OSH.

Figure 1, accident happened due to lack of information about OSH

(Taken from: slides)

How can a person judge all these rules and know if in each different situation he/she is
making correct chose ?there is an answer for that, ethics theory is being used in the society in
order to distinguish right and wrong in different action, but the word ethics comes from the
Greek ethos with meaning of morals. In fact, ethics can be defined as the systematic
reflection on what is moral. In this definition, morality is the whole of opinions and actions
which people think is good or right. Then in order to think ethically, the engineer need to
systematically reflect on what people think is good or right. There are four main theories in
solving ethical problem, they are knows as Relativism, Utilitarianism, Duty ethics and rights
ethics and Virtue ethics. Relativism, the first ethical theory which state that"there is no
accepted, universal standard of right and wrong, it is extremely important to understand that
ethical theory does not consider as rule, it is just a understand of each person to satisfy
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society need and behave in order to not disturb the society. A good example can be kissing in
public, this action is common in western countries however in Asian countries no.Another
example of relativism is the hand gesture which symbolizes a peace sign turned backwards.
The gesture is considered rude, offensive and unethical in the United Kingdom while other
countries do not consider normal.
Yet another ethical theory is Utilitarianism, which can be defined as an action is good if it
serves to maximize the public/human welfare. This theory does not emphasize on maximize
the welfare of the individual, but rather on maximizing the welfare of the public and give a
basic look to the living behaviour in society, as people all live together and needs harmony to
survive so the action that brings most benefit to public to public and improve living standards
of people is consider as a good action. For example, building a dam which destroy
environment and will affect eco system or building the highway through housing area, since
it has most benefit for public it count as a good action.
Another ethical theory is known as Duty Ethics and Right Ethics whereas both theories are
complete each other. These theories speak of good actions that respect the rights of an
individual. Duty ethics states specific on people have duties, an important one of which is to
protect the rights of others this is actually other responsibilities for others.. On the other
hand, Right ethics states that people have fundamental rights that other have duties to
protect this part want all individual to have their right against each other.

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Case study
In the given scenario, the professional engineer has found himself in trouble, in his site or
work, there is a slight chemical waste drop in the environment in waste disposal area, the
engineer in charge base on his duty and as he is in charge of the site, should come up with a
solution and fix a problem before it turn to serious and out of control.
As a responsible engineer, the best way to solve a issue is to come up with all the needs and
procedure to a fix a problem, anyhow as professional engineer submitted the proposal to his
supervisor regarding a problem and also the way to solve problem, his proposal got rejected
and been recommended to ignore the problem as it is not that big deal and important since it
only occur seldom. In this scenario the supervisor has the responsibilities to do more
investigation on the problem or at least send a team to try fix the problem.
Supervisor has done a huge mistake and it all now end with professional engineer to try and
fix a problem, of course the engineer is facing ethical problem, on one hand he has to satisfy
his employer and on the other hand the lives of people and even workers are in danger so he
has an obligation to hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public. The engineer
by reporting the problem to higher authority inside company might upset his supervisor and
even in worst case scenario, he might lose his job or he can just simply ignore the problem
and be loyal to company which it will endanger the health and safety of public and even the
workers.
Base on ethical relativism theory, he cant report his supervisor to higher authority as it is not
common in a working environment and the main reason is that everyone wants to keep their
career. Another ethical theory to solve a case is utilitarianism, the best action for the engineer
in this case is to just report the waste drop to the engineering society or even environments
organization , so that they follow the problem and fix it before turn to bad. However it is not
end here, the engineer has right to life and work in the company at same time he has duty to
save people life and try not to harm anyone, if the engineer never report the case to higher
authorities and one day someone get harm, it will be his fault base on duty ethics and right
ethics. In short, the engineer needs to not only save lives of people but also keep his career,
based on relativism theory, it would not be a good idea to report his supervisor as he might
lose his career, and on the other hand utilitarianism theory is forcing him to report the case to
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higher authorities before it become serious, if the enginner could come up a with new
proposal which suggest new way to solve the problem , if he get rejected again, its his duty
and responsibility to take serious action against his supervisor as, now it is safety of public
that come in the picture and nothing is more important.
In order to solve the case, the following rules and regulation of code of conduct can be used:

1. A Registered Engineer shall at all-time hold paramount the safety, health and welfare
of the public.
A Professional Engineer shall certify satisfactory completion of a piece of work only

i.

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 the prior

ii.

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.
A Registered Engineer having knowledge of any violation of this code and Local

iii.

Authorities regulations shall report thereon to appropriate professional bodies and,

when relevant, also to public authorities and cooperate with the proper authorities in
iv.

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.

Base on all above codes, it is engineer duty to report case to the department of environment
as this problem might affect all local environment issue and might not be good for people
health and welfare.by reporting the case to all responsible organization, it not only save him
from any misunderstanding in future but also might solve thousand people lives. The
following code suggests him to write full report and submit it to proper organization.
2. A Registered Engineer shall be objective and truthful in professional reports,
statements and testimony. He shall include all relevant and pertinent information in

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such reports, statements, or testimony, which should bear the date indicating when it
was current.
3. A Registered Engineer shall act for each employer or clients as faithful agent or
i.

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.

There are couple of important safety measurement that needs to be considering in order
protecting the safety and welfare of workers such as:
As per requirements from the departments of environments and also the construction industry
, hazardous waste needs to be properly handle and make sure there are no waste leakage in
environments as it can affect the safety and welfare of employee that are working in
construction area. Since the waste leakage occur seldom and its not regular, it is important to
test the leakage doze and see if this amount of chemical waste has any effect on the
environment system, also Need to check the volume of the leakage, need to come up with
data to analyse if the leakage is major or minor Plus to know, if the leaked volume of waste
water without treatment would create any problems to the river ecological system and the
local community. All these data will be useful for the engineer if he/she might want to report
the case to higher authorities.
Another way to make company to solve the problem is to come up with a price comparison
between all the parts and man power needed to fix a leakage problem and the fine that would
DOSH put on company for ignoring such important problem, in this comparison not only the
engineer can win fight but also he will be treat as a responsible engineer that not only is
caring for safety but also is worried about company loss and benefit. For final decision since
the professional engineer has been moved to another department and as his department is for
safety and welfare of workers, he should come up with a notice and give a warning to
everyone and let all the workers in the section be verify of a danger that these chemicals
waste could have, furthermore by placing a sign near chemical waste area notify everyone, by
this action not only workers are safe but also if inspector from higher authority come for the
inspection will notify the sign and might help to force company to fix a problem as soon as
possible.
However by taking the BEM code of conduct under consideration, the engineer in charge has
moral obligation, to abide by BEMs code of professional conduct therefore professional
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engineer has to inform a higher authority to take action agents company it is define in first
regulation.
A Registered Engineer shall at all-time hold paramount the safety, health and welfare
of the public.
So the professional engineer has to inform safety and health department to take serious action
and as fast as possible to avoid any losses and danger for environment and it is really
essential for him to collect all the data possible in order to present it to the right person in
right time.
A Registered Engineer shall not reveal facts, data or information without the 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.
The professional engineer has to ignore his feeling and all the ethical theory in order to be
able to do the best for the society and help the people and workers forward for better future of
both company and society, even though he might loses his job in process of reporting the case
to higher authority.

Conclusion
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Working environment is a place that there will be always an ethical dilemma then BEMs
Code of Professional Conduct and ethical theories oblige an essential purpose of guiding
workers and engineers to be safe and be able to make the right decisions at the right time for
their working experience. So by knowing the codes and trying to use them in the daily life
and make them our life priority, the working environment will defiantly be more nicer and
better for all to work in as these codes solve all the conflict between parties, for example in
the given scenario, the supervisor by ignoring the codes and the professional engineer place
him in a difficult situation as he could not decide whether it will be good to report the
problem to higher authority or just keep quiet and continue his career. These cases can only
be solving by knowing and using all the ethical concepts and BEMs code of professional.
These codes not only benefit the employer but employee will take benefit by knowing them
that is why most of the organisations are trying to be under control of board of engineer, in
order to solve their problems and difficulties by using the codes.

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Reference

Board Of Engineers Malaysia, (2004), Guidelines for Code of Professional Conduct

[online],
Board of Engineers Malaysia, Malaysia, (Available at:
http://www.bem.org.my/v3/codes_conduct.html), [Retrieved on 10th April 2013]

Ethical theories for business,(2011),Bare bones for business educators(PDF

document),Gregory B sadler Available at:
http://missionparalegal.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/45865666/Five%20Ethical
%20Theories.pdf , [Retrieve on 11 May 2013]

Laws of Malaysia, (2006). Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 [online], The
Commisioneir of Law Revision Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, (Available at:
http://www.agc.gov.my/Akta/Vol.%2011/Act%20514.pdf), [Retrieved on 1th May
2013]

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