Ethics for Industrial Engineering Undergraduates

Edward Pines

Department of Industrial Engineering

New Mexico State University

Las Cruces, NM 88003

epines@nmsu.edu

A large variety of teaching materials are available for engineering ethics. Often they take the form of cases and analysis. Ethical theory is presented as part of the analysis or as an introduction to the analysis. Frequently, however, undergraduates do not see how such matters relate to them. While cases are interesting of themselves, the students often have limited views as to how the case affects them or their career. Essentially, the market for their education and skills communicates a different message. Students may receive the message that a Ateam@ player gets ahead by doing what best benefits a firm=s management without regard to ethical treatment of workers or vendors.

Industrial engineering students often find themselves in a unique situation for engineers. They may be working for non-engineers in large organizations or accept positions in areas such as material or production control or supervision. Such assignments do however use their engineering education and skills. Additionally, there are now international standards for areas such as quality and many organizations now have international facilities bringing additional ethical issues. Given the potential ethical pressures on industrial engineers, it is conceivably even more critical that industrial engineering students are acquainted with ethical systems, decision making and an engineer=s responsibilities. Tasks such as job design, quality, ergonomics, safety, or vendor interaction can otherwise become an ethical quagmire.

Educating students on their ethical responsibilities can be a tricky process. In this paper, one recently begun approach is discussed. This approach uses cases dedicated toward industrial engineering problems such as work measurement, logistics, quality and other areas as part of a senior-level industrial engineering course.

Introduction

The world of engineering ethics education offers a rich variety of texts, cases, articles, and other teaching materials{1}. Industrial engineering students encounter many ethical situations in the real-world application of their education but often do not see their needs addressed in ethics educational materials. They address a set of situations that may be somewhat unique in the engineering disciplines- they may frequently work for managers who are not engineers, or may have non-engineering titles and deal, on a daily basis, with workers and vendors. Thus, industrial engineers face a unique set of ethical pressures from other engineers. Additionally, their ability to appeal to a professional code of ethics may be limited by their employment--they are perceived as representatives of management. Yet, there is a clear need for an understanding of ethical behavior and consequences of lapses. This paper argues that industrial engineering students need to be much more aware of ethics and its practices since the pressures on industrial engineers are significant and their roles are more ambiguous within the organizational structure.

Frequently, discussing spectacular cases of design, construction, or supervision such as the Citicorp Center {2} or the Space Shuttle Challenger {3} can heighten student interest in ethical issues. While the ethical issues may be murky or misunderstood by students, the case for application of the NSPE Code of Ethics or other appropriate codes of ethics is completely clear. Such overriding concerns as public safety and welfare are visible and imperative. Industrial engineering situations often do not require a design responsibility or interaction with the public=s safety or welfare. Areas such as work measurement or quality do present the industrial engineer with ethical issues in how she or he works with managers, employees, and vendors. The two-step interface between manager and engineer and then engineer and worker can be a special area of interest, especially as work measurement directly affects the worker=s pay, and potentially, continued employment. We are directly interested in misuse or fraudulent use of industrial engineering or manipulation of industrial engineers by their management here, not ethical application of industrial engineering methods. One colloquial phrase often heard, to Aput on your management hat,@ leads to an ambiguous situation for the new industrial engineer or the one who seeks career advancement. While the Space Shuttle Challenger case dramatically illustrates this problem, such thinking is not easily transferable to a more mundane product or process. The author remembers several instances from his own industrial engineering career in which Adoing the right thing@ as would be understood in ethical engineering was termed by colleagues and management instead to be a sellout of the management team. In a recent paper, Devon makes an excellent argument for a framework, not just individual ethics. {4} This is a critical aspect of working in organizations with shared responsibilities-the individual often cannot be ethical on her/his own.

Laws of the workplace, e.g., Fair Labor Standards, and new workplace initiatives such as standards for social accountability such as SA 8000, quality, e.g., ISO 9000, or environmentally conscious manufacturing, e.g., ISO 14000, govern many industrial engineering situations. The industrial engineer must adapt. In this paper, some areas of industrial engineering that may result in ethical issues are discussed. Helping a student develop a sense of how to address professional ethical issues while satisfying their responsibilities to workers and to their employers is an important challenge. An approach to acquaint industrial engineering students with engineering ethics as well as business and marketplace ethics is presented and some plans for an initial class are discussed.

Approach

To meet the needs of industrial engineering students, an approach based on the diversity of career paths was developed. Frequently, industrial engineering students take positions that do not carry engineering titles or are not supervised by engineers. They may, in fact, be using their industrial engineering degree as a credential demonstrating a level of academic achievement. One common path is to take a position as a production supervisor leading to a managerial career. In such cases, an awareness of engineering ethics is of great importance. An employer may be using the student=s industrial engineering degree while expecting the new supervisor to Awear his/her management hat.@

Many industrial engineers are responsible for large capital equipment budgets for their employers. Computer-based equipment for manufacturing or logistics can be quite costly and offer a variety of opportunities to study of ethical issues such as vendor relationships or worker concerns. This is of special interest in situations such as maquiladora industries where dual plant setups can include multiple purchases of equipment.

One issue of special note is the use of computer-based pacing of work. Traditionally, work measurement has been a concern of industrial engineers. The Afair day=s work for a fair day=s pay@ concern has been a hallmark of the industrial engineer. As work becomes more computer-based, however, the opportunity for abuse becomes greater. The use of computer-generated statistics for jobs such as telephone customer support representatives can become seductive by their apparent logic. It is appropriate to caution students about the possibility of such abuse. Any such system must be maintained under ethical work measurement principles and with appropriate ergonomic controls.

Total quality management teams or concurrent design teams also provide a laboratory for ethical behavior. Our alumni frequently report that they are working on multinational teams coordinated through e-mail, video, and phone. Responsibility for decisions is then spread across borders. International operations are becoming more important and, as has been seen on national television and newspapers, standards for workplaces are highly country-specific. There can be significant differences between U.S. and other country workplaces, work standards, and customs. Additionally, as more international specifications such as ISO 9000 for quality management systems become a part of business, ethical dilemmas can enter new areas.

Our approach has taken the form of developing cases that serve the specific needs of industrial engineering students and developing several exercises for an industrial engineering capstone design class. At New Mexico State University, the capstone design class is based on a group consulting project for an industrial partner. As this work is mostly not an in-class activity, class time is available for discussions of engineering ethics and business ethics.

This approach presents engineering codes of ethics and methods for resolving ethical problems. Following this, students are asked to solve several existing cases that have a relationship to typical industrial engineering problems such as vendor relationships or managerial oversight. Interestingly, several students complained that the cases seemed to be related to chemical or civil engineering and not to industrial engineering and, therefore not really salient.

The next step will be to introduce cases that were developed in areas such as quality control and international logistics. {5} They address specific issues industrial engineering students may encounter in their career paths. Such cases will be worked as group assignments and then discussed in class. Engineering is increasingly practiced in teams making it appropriate to evaluate ethics cases in teams. Students then have an opportunity to see the effects of their decisions on other team members and the workplace.

The last step is a group exercise that addresses issues in work measurement. Students will be asked to develop their own case study. This is an exercise that has been successfully used in an ethics class as students to consider how to illustrate or teach what they believe to be ethical and non-ethical behaviors. {6} Students can find it is difficult to communicate successfully what they believe is ethical behavior. Yet, as engineers work in teams they must be able to evaluate ethical issues and act. Work measurement was chosen as a topic as it is a typical entry-level engineering task. Measuring work places the industrial engineers in an interesting ethical zone- engineers are in-between management who may be hoping for lower costs and workers who may already be working at an appropriate rate. Pressures from either side or an engineer=s wishes or goals may lead to ethical dilemmas. When working as part of a team, they made find pressures to maintain a team ethic. This exercise is intended to allow students to consider these issues and how they might act.

Conclusions

Industrial engineering students encounter unique ethical challenges that can be met with a creative response. This must be addressed in industrial engineering programs. A framework that addresses these problems is entirely possible and can be implemented in traditional undergraduate courses. Such a framework must consider career paths, team work, business and marketplace issues, and international and legal concerns.

References

1. There are several texts, a variety of web sites, and numerous publications.

2. Goldstein, Stanley H. and Rubin, Robert A. (1996). AEngineering Ethics,@ Civil Engineering, October, 66(10), 41-44.

3. Harris, C. Edward and Rabins, Michael J. (1994). Introducing Ethics Case Studies Into Required Undergraduate Engineering Courses, NSF Grant #DIR-9012252, http://ethics.tamu.edu.

4. Devon, Richard. (1999). AToward a Social Ethics of Engineering: The Norms of Engagement,@ Journal of Engineering Education, 88(1), 87-92.

5. Valles-Rosales, Delia J., Pines, Edward, and Lambert, Brian K. (1999). ALearning about Ethics in International Logistics and Quality Control in Border Areas,@ 1999 NMSU College of Engineering Education Conference, Las Cruces, NM, April 8-9, 1999.

6. Pines, Edward. (1999). AEngineering Ethics: Learning From the Professional Engineer,@ 1999 ASEE Gulf Southwest Conference, Dallas, TX, March 7-9, 1999.

Acknowledgment: The support of the Engineering Information Foundation under grant number EIF 97.15 is gratefully acknowledged.