ENGR $201$ Professional Practice & Responsibility

Tutorial $5$: Honesty

The case study you will discuss here is related to the lecture on honesty. In the lecture we discussed that you should carefully evaluate the degree of honesty in your workplace relations. Use this case to illustrate honesty.

Case Study: The Deadline

Ruskin Manufacturing has guaranteed Parker Products that it will deliver a complete order of small machines by the tenth of the month, a Friday. Parker had already extended its deadline once. This time, Parker insists, the date must be met. Tim Vinson, head of quality control at Ruskin, had been confident that the deadline would be met, but on the eighth he learns that a new component used in the machines is in short supply. He thinks of several options:

Approve breaking up and regrinding the remaining supply of the old component that was being replaced. This could probably be accomplished in time, but the speed at which it would have to be done raises concerns about impurities in the process.

Approve using the old component in place of the new one. The product would still function well, and it would be unlikely that Parker would ever detect the difference. Although Parker would not be getting exactly what it ordered, the product would meet minimum safety standards.

Discuss the problem with the design engineer and see what they suggest.

Which of these options is the $$best$?$ Can you think of other options that might be preferable?

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Suppose Vinson decides to consult Chuck Davidson, the chief design engineer for this product and Davidson says, $$I don$$t have a good answer for you. There$$s no time to come up with a completely satisfactory alternative. You could regrind but given the time frame, you could get a lot of impurities. Or$,$ you could just use the old components. But I am not going to advise either of those. I don$$t want this hanging over my head. Maybe you should call Arnold.$$

Arnold Peterson is vice$-$president of product engineering at Ruskin. Years ago, like Tim Vinson, Peterson served as head of quality control. Vinson is somewhat uneasy about calling Peterson for two reasons. First, Vinson feels responsible for not seeing the problem earlier and is reluctant to admit failure the vice president of product engineering. Second, he wonders if Peterson would really want to be bothered by something like this. He might tell Vinson that the problem is his to solve $$ somehow. Still Vinson is not comfortable with resolving the problem by himself.

What would you advise Vinson do next?

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Vinson decides to take a decision without asking Peterson and because he approved substitution of the old component, the order is completed on time. However, several months later Parker returns several of the machines to Ruskin from the order Vinson completed. Parker complains that the machines in this part of the order are not functioning as efficiently as the others. When a Parker technician disassembled several of the less efficient machines and compared them with one that was working well, she discovered that each of the less efficient ones has a key component that differs from the components in the properly functioning machine. Parker asks for an explanation. Word now comes to Vinson that he is expected to appear at a meeting with the Arnold Peterson, Vice President of Ruskin and a Parker representative. What

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